Growing Up Native American

GROWING UP NATIVE AMERICAN EDITED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY PATRICIA RILEY

FOREWORD BY INÉS HERNANDEZ

This book is dedicated to the Native American children of the past, present, and future

Contents

Foreword: Reflections on Identity and Culture by Inés Hernandez

7

Introduction

17

Going Forward, Looking Back

21

“The Language We Know” by Simon Ortiz

23

“The Warriors” by Anna Lee Walters

33

The Nineteenth Century

49

From Waterlily by Ella Cara Deloria

51

From Life Among the Piutes by Sara Winnemucca Hopkins

67

“Ni-Bo-Wi-Se-Gwe” by Ignatia Broker

81

“Wasichus in the Hills” by Black Elk as told to John G. Neihardt

91

“At Last I Kill a Buffalo” by Luther Standing Bear Schooldays

101 109

From The Middle Five: Indian Schoolboys of the Omaha Tribe by Francis La Flesche

111

From Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions by Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes

129

From Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich

145

“A Day in the Life of Spanish” by Basil Johnston

161

Twentieth Century

183

From Sundown by John Joseph Mathews

185

From Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan

197

From The Names: A Memoir by N. Scott Momaday

209

“Notes of a Translator’s Son” by Joseph Bruchac

231

“Turbulent Childhood” by Lee Maracle

241

“The Talking That Trees Does” by Geary Hobson

257

“Water Witch” by Louis Owens

267

“Grace” by Vickie L. Sears

273

“Uncle Tony’s Goat” by Leslie Marmon Silko

293

From Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris

301

“The Ballad of Plastic Fred” by Eric L. Gansworth

319

Acknowledgments Other Growing Up Titles Cover Copyright About the Publisher

FOREWORD: REFLECTIONS ON IDENTITY AND CULTURE

[My grandfather] and the grandmothers and grandfathers before him thought about us as they lived, confirmed in their belief of a continuing life…. [T]hey brought our present beings into existence by the beliefs they held (Simon Ortiz).* I am a Nimipu (Nez Perce) woman on my mom’s side, and a woman of Mexican Indian descent on my dad’s. As an educator, a scholar, a poet, and a human being, I identify as a native woman of this hemisphere. I am honored to write an introduction to this collection. I begin with the words of Acoma writer Simon Ortiz because the passage raises questions that I believe are addressed throughout the selections in this book. To begin with, what does Ortiz mean when he says that the grandmothers and grandfathers “thought about us”? How did they think about us? What is “a continuing life”? How did they bring us into existence by their beliefs? Is what Ortiz says common to all peoples? Maybe so, maybe not. The answer reveals itself as the selections herein shed light on the distinctiveness of Native American belief systems, and Native American cultural responses to historical experience. Given the current interest in “diversity” and “multiculturalism,” as well as the changing demographics of this nation, it may very well be that many people of many ethnicities, including recent immigrants from

*

Passages cited within this introduction may be found in the selections in this anthology.

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throughout the Americas as well as other parts of the world, will find something in this collection that will speak to them with respect to issues of identity, culture, community, and representation. I cannot assume, however, nor should anyone, that the readership of this book will be completely non-Indian. I would hope that this book falls into the hands of many Native American readers who will see the text as a respectful opening into the multilayered and intricate worlds from which they (we) come. I sense that they will find themselves in some selections more than others (which is not a judgment on the selections but a comment on the heterogeneity of “the” Native American experience in relation to U.S. society), depending upon what their own personal experience has been, and what they have been told, if anything, about the experience of their families and their people. There are stories told with the certainty of being brought up as an “Indian.” There are other stories where the contours and distinctions have become fuzzy, sometimes through outright denial of a heritage. As Joe Bruchac says: In the face of those denials I felt, at times, like one who looks into a mirror and sees a blur over part of his own face. No matter how he shifts, changes the light, cleans the glass, that area which cannot be clearly seen remains. And its very uncertainty becomes more important than that which is clear and defined in his vision. And yet, in Bruchac’s very writing of these lines, he provides a mirror for those who have undergone the same experience. His words, like the words of the other native people represented here, form the mirrors by which the images, of native people come into sharper focus for all of us. Native people know that the term “Indian” is a misnomer, but we have made it our own, just as we have made “American Indian” and more recently “Native American” our own, even though in our original languages, each of our peoples had (and have) their own name for themselves and for this part of the earth that is now known as “America.” We refer to each other by the tribe or nation that we are from—that is one of the first questions we ask each other, “Who are your people?” and

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“Where are you from?” I am Nimipu; in my mother’s language Nimipu means “We, the people.” It is our name for ourselves as human beings. This is so for most other native peoples, as is evidenced by the recent exhibit (August 26—October 19, 1992) of contemporary Native American art at the College of Wooster Art Museum in Wooster, Ohio, which was entitled “We, the Human Beings.” The labels “Native American” or “American Indian” are in the end simplistic generalizations, generic terms, that at best acknowledge the fact that indeed indigenous peoples in this hemisphere did and do have something in common. This book serves to demonstrate some of the ways that we come together, in variation, around themes that are central to our experience. What we have most in common today might be called the two major components of our identity. One is our identification with this hemisphere as our original land base, articulated through the oral tradition in the sacred stories of our beginnings, as well as in the stories (or “teachings”) about our sacred principles, our relationship to the earth and all of life. One of the beliefs that all the writers convey is the importance of memory. Ortiz says, “I can’t remember a world without memory. Memory, immediate and far away in the past, something in the sinew, blood, ageless cell.” In remembrance we find continuance; native peoples know this. And as N. Scott Momaday says, the spirit informs the memory* and the one memory is of the land.§ Ortiz writes of “the ageless mother pueblo of Acoma.” Ignatia Broker tells us of the “grandfathers and grandmothers who were the dust of the forests.” My own grandfather Ukshanat (Thomas Andrews) used to say that at one time we were all one people, from the north to the south of this hemisphere, which is not to say that we all spoke the same language or practiced exactly the same “culture.” What he meant was that we were (and I would say we are still) all related in our relationship to this

*

N. Scott Momaday, “The Magic of Words,” in Survival This Way: Interviews with American Indian Poets, ed. Joseph Bruchac (Tucson: Sun Tracks and University of Arizona Press, 1987). § N. Scott Momaday, “Man Made of Words,” in Literature of the American Indians: Views and Interpretations, ed. Abraham Chapman (New York: New American Library, 1975).

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particular land base that has always been our homeland. Each distinct “culture” learned (and learns) its form and expression from the particular sacred places or land base that its people are from. And so we have desert peoples, mountain peoples, coastal peoples, plains peoples, lake peoples. These peoples traveled and knew each other; they had established trade routes and complex networks of communication and social relations. That is not to say they did not sometimes go to war with each other, but they also made peace with each other. The other common denominator is the historical experience of colonization that began to be imposed on us over five hundred years ago, and that is marked by the arrival on the shores of this hemisphere of a man named Columbus who was lost. Columbus, under orders of the Spanish Crown, quickly turned his “mistake” into a colossal feat of Empire, paving the way as he and his men did for what has come to be known as the “Conquest” of the Americas. Simon Ortiz’s essay properly frames this collection, because in it he reminds us to place his own and the other narratives within the context of both the colonial experience, and the resistance movements that were (and are) seeking “decolonization,” including those of “present-day Indians in Central and South America with whom we must identify.” In the main, these selections remember what the guiding principles of the original cultures were as they interrogate and oppose the “right of conquest,” genocide, colonialism, “Manifest Destiny,” the missionization campaigns, cultural genocide, imperialism, stereotyping, and the imposition on ourselves of who we are from the “conqueror’s” perspective. The infamous “Conquest” is not a fait accompli; many native peoples have designated the arrival of Europeans—call them colonizers, agents of colonial (and imperial) rule, settlers, or immigrants—as the “Invasion.” The experience of indigenous peoples at the hands of those who came and “conquered” in this hemisphere is regarded as the “continuing Invasion.” I cannot say this strongly enough. What we have in this collection, in many cases, are stories by or about “prisoners of war”—this is not a statement meant to alarm anyone, or to arouse feelings of guilt in anyone. It is simply a matter of fact. We were the enemy. It is one thing to read about this inter-

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change from the perspective of the “victors,” quite another to read about it from the perspective of those who were defeated militarily and then subjected to indoctrination programs that were meant to “defeat” them in every other way as well. The United States in its westward expansion, justified by the notion of a “Manifest Destiny,” defeated Native American peoples with its superior military technology and seemingly limitless armies. For indigenous people of the U.S. Southwest, Mexico had previously played out its own role as “conqueror” and colonizer. But as Ortiz says, “Aacquu did not die in 1598 when it was burned and razed by European conquerors, nor did the people become hopeless when their children were taken away to U.S. schools far from home and new ways were imposed upon them.” “Forced acculturation”—“brainwashing”—“reprogramming”—whatever the process is called that was imposed at Indian schools, they were, in Lame Deer’s words, “like jails and run along military lines.” But he, like many other Indian youth, refused “to cooperate in the remaking of [him]self.” I would venture to say that he and all of the rest of us who have survived have called on every ounce of our originality to give us the strength and inspiration for what Ortiz calls our “fightback.” This originality is found in the original cultural teachings that honor our humanity, our dignity, and our spirits as necessary components of our identity. Momaday says that “[n]otions of the past and future are esentially notions of the present. In the same way an idea of one’s ancestry and posterity is really an idea of the self.” I have heard many elders say that we that walk the earth now are the link between our ancestors and our unborn generations—the past and the future come together in us. Is this idea particularly and only Native American? Of course not, and yet perhaps its particular manifestation is. I know that I am not the only Native American person who relates to the story of Waterlily’s being given the gift of her own personal history. When I read how her memory is nurtured by the “recitals of her early doings and sayings” (Deloria), how indeed her very being in the world is of significance for others as well as for her, I am reminded of my own mother, and of how she was (and is) with me, with my sons, and with my grandchildren. I understand how “having

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one’s senses” means growing in awareness and responsibility for one’s self and one’s words and actions in relation to all things. For those native people who have been fortunate enough to receive some or all of their cultural understandings, I believe that we would agree that children are sacred and honored members of our communities, as are the good grandmothers and the good grandfathers. There is an intimate, special bond between the youngest and the oldest members of the community. It is common among Indian people to hear children being referred to as “little grammas and little grampas.” When you call a child a “little gramma” you give her a sense of the importance of her place over the generations, just as you acknowledge her ability to teach you right now from the wisdom of her little person’s perspective. Children learn to be attentive because we are attentive to them, as several of the selections in this collection demonstrate so beautifully. There are other stories, too, however, that show us the consequences of war, capture, surrender, relocation, and conversion. In Sarah Winnemucca’s story, we see the terror of the children as the whites approach. From the game of “playing buried” in Waterlily’s story, we move to the reality of being “buried alive” in Sarah’s story. And in most cases the transition was just that quick. From the family’s “planting sage bushes over [the] faces [of the children]” (Winnemucca) to hide them from the usurpers, we come to “Joe” being brutally beaten in Francis La Flesche’s story of the Omaha children in boarding school. We also see that even in the midst of their own despair, and their own infrequent but joyous reunions with their families, the young boys know when to be quiet and show respect, as when they come upon the woman who is in mourning. It is a delicate balance that they are keeping, negotiating for their lives in an alien setting that was meant to bring them into line and to destroy every shred of self-esteem that their own culture had given them. These are the stories of subversion and insubordination—what would today be praised as admirable and even heroic if any U.S. soldiers were to become prisoners of war. Boarding schools were (and are) simultaneously sites of indoctrination and resistance. As Lame Deer said, “I came out more Indian than when I went in.” There is something to be said for

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determination and the ability to be creative in the most repressive of situations. Lame Deer learns “some good fox songs” in the basement that is a place of solitary confinement. In the same manner, just this last year, in 1992, Paiute/Pit River artist Jean LaMarr created a piece entitled We Danced and Sang Until the Matrons Came, which is her own commentary on the subversiveness of children who are placed in boarding schools. What is crucial to remember regarding Native American peoples who live within the United States is that in over three hundred cases, the U.S. government entered into treaty agreements with Indian peoples on a nation-to-nation basis. The fact that all of these treaties have been broken and dishonored by the U.S. government is directly related to the fact that the “unfortunately ordinary” problems that Ortiz speaks of—poverty, battered self-esteem, alcoholism, and personal and cultural disintegration—are still with us. These problems do not constitute Native American “culture.” It is not the fault of our “culture” that our communities are suffering as they are today. Our communities are still contending with and contesting the intentional and systematic pattern of unjust treatment that is at the core of our historical relationship with the U.S. government. Worst of all, Native Americans are still denied religious freedom in this society, and for native people, spirituality and culture are inextricably interwoven, so the denial of religious freedom is a direct attack on the culture. Knowing how “to live beautifully from day to day” (Walters) and how to ensure a “continuing life” (Ortiz) have as much to do with spirituality as they have to do with culture. They both have to do with ethical understandings of how to be in the world in relation to all that lives, to all that is. What part does language play in the formulation of the idea of the self? Everything. We always come back to language. N. Scott Momaday won the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1969, for his novel House Made of Dawn demonstrating his command of the English language in all its beauty. In 1992, Rigoberta Menchú, a thirty-threeyear-old Mayan woman and revolutionary leader, won the Nobel Peace Prize for her dedicated work toward a peaceful ending of the repression against indigenous people in Guatemala, and for her conscious articulation of the

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struggle her people are waging. Menchú, in her own autobiography, states that she learned how to speak Spanish in order to defend her people. The voices in this collection come to us in English, in one of the invaders’ languages. Sometimes, the command of English has cost the very high price of the original native language. And yet, learning the system that is oppressing us, Ortiz reminds us, gives us “the motive of a fightback,” and a major aspect of the system is the language. After all, language has been used against us—the language that ridiculed our naming of the world. The language that has misrepresented us and distorted our faces so that we would not recognize ourselves—the racist language that called (and calls) us “savage,” “heathen,” “drunkard,” “squaw,” or “chief.” The duplicitous language that betrays us in the courts, and tries to keep us fighting among ourselves along bloodlines. The entitled “conquerors’” languages that even tried to erase from us the memory of our own names, replacing them with names in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. In many Native American communities our languages are being resuscitated (many were never completely lost). As they are revived, we are revived. This does not mean that we will no longer speak “the invaders’ languages.” We have made them our own, too, and in that sense, we are, like Bruchac, “able to understand the language of both [or all] sides, to help them understand each other.” Patricia Riley has carefully selected and woven together these “growing up” stories, which give us a sense of the commonality and diversity of experience (in terms of historical moment, gender, full or mixed bloodness, reservation or urban background) within the Native American community. I hope readers of this book will understand the fallacy of trying to use only “a few ill-chosen words…to encapsulate an entire human life!” (Bruchac) In matters of identity, labels are generally imprecise and problematic in their “lumping together” of peoples who do identify with each other culturally and by ethnicity. Often, unfortunately, people can become quite rigid in their notions, especially if they have unquestioningly accepted restrictive (and prescriptive) stereotyping. Recently I had a non-Indian student in a Native American literature class become indignant when a guest speaker (who curates Native American art exhibits)

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showed us images by contemporary Native American artists that made use of irony, highlighted contradiction, and otherwise manifested “Indian humor.” In response to the presentation, the student wrote furiously (and with an assumed authority that was quite startling) that the “true” images of Indians are those that depict still and solemn faces. He insisted that the artists were catering to and appeasing non-Indian audiences. There were just too many smiles, and the subjects (and the artists) were just having too much fun! That couldn’t be “Indian.” Indeed, humor is very much a part of living and “fighting back” as an Indian in today’s world. I hope readers will get a sense also of the “strong positive view of our collective Indianness” (Ortiz), and “the integrity and dignity of an Indian identity” (Ortiz), as well as the intense struggle that is involved in “being human” from a Native American perspective in contemporary society. I am happy that Patricia Riley has dedicated this book to young Native Americans; they deserve to come first in a collection that is about growing up Native American. If they come to read these stories that are about people like them, maybe they won’t feel as “distant as the stars” (Johnston) from their own people, wherever they might be. Maybe the question and declaration from the little girl in Anna Lee Walters’s story will ring true for them, too, “You Indian, ain’t you? We your people!” And in the end this book is also for all young people everywhere, for their just hearts and spirits, and for their own “belief in a continuing life.” Inés Hernandez NOTE

For those readers who would like more information on Native American literature, here are a few titles of the many available: Studies in American Indian Literature: Critical Essays and Course Designs, ed. Paula Gunn Allen (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1983); Narrative Chance: Postmodern Discourse on Native American Indian Literature, ed. Gerald Vizenor; and Survival This Way: Interviews with American Indian Poets, ed. Joseph Bruchac. For a focus on the diversity of Native American Women writers, Beth Brant’s A Gathering of Spirit

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and Rayna Green’s That’s What She Said: Contemporary Poetry and Fiction by Native American Women are good introductions. The Rights of Indians and Tribes, by Stephen L. Pevar, and American Indian Federal Policy, ed. Vine Deloria, Jr., are important for providing the legal, legislative, and political explanations of the status of Native Americans in the United States. The American Indian in Western Legal Thought: The Discourses of Conquest, by Robert A. Williams, Jr., and The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization and Resistance, ed. Annette Jaimes, both provide a hemispheric and global perspective to the status and struggles of indigenous peoples today. The Sacred: Paths of Knowledge/Sources of Life, Anna Lee Waters, Peggy Beck, and Nia Francisco, which is published by Navajo Community College Press, focuses on Native American spiritual foundations, and the journal Wicazo Sa [Red Pencil]Review, ed. Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, offers perspectives on Native American Studies as a discipline, and on issues of critical importance to the Native American community today, such as the current struggles for Native American religious freedom.

INTRODUCTION

What does it mean to grow up Native American? There are as many answers to that question as there are Native American people. Certainly, there are as many stories. Stories of oppression and survival, of people who grew up surrounded by tradition, and people who did not. Stories of the pressures of forced assimilation and stories of resistance, of heritage denied and of heritage reclaimed. A multiplicity of stories. When I began to choose narratives to exemplify both the commonality and diversity of Native American experience, I also began a backward journey through my childhood to examine my own growing up Native American. I remembered a conversation that took place between my mother and my great-aunt Avorilla one hot and humid summer afternoon during a visit to my father’s family in Jackson, Tennessee. My mother mentioned that my paternal grandmother had always attributed the black hair and brown skin that she and her sister shared as coming from their Black Irish ancestors. My great-aunt got a real look on her face and said, “Oh, she did, did she? So that’s what she tells people.” I was a young girl then, maybe seven or eight years old, and did not yet understand the practice of “passing” or the historical factors and racial prejudice that brought it into being. Nor did I understand the internal conflict and anguish of those who attempted to be what they were not. This same grandmother, who took such pains to disguise her Cherokee blood, woke me up very early one morning that summer. The dew had been heavy the night before and still

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glistened on the grass as she led me by the hand into the piney woods to show me the place where the little people danced at night. She said she often heard their music and their voices. I thought she was talking about leprechauns, though she never once said that was who they were. Leprechauns were Irish and I knew all about them from my mother’s side of the family. Many years later, after I had searched out and reclaimed my Cherokee heritage, I came to understand who my grandmother had been really talking about: the Cherokee little people, the Yunwi Tsunsdi. Especially fond of lost children, these protective guides helped them to find their way home again. My grandmother, this woman who had lived her entire life in denial of her Indianness, blessed me in the only way she knew how, with a memory and a story that would eventually enable me to find my way home again to my Cherokee roots. I can’t help but wonder if that was what she had intended all along. I also thought about the fact that, as a child growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, I was completely unaware that books written about Native American people by Native American people existed. I never got a chance to read John Joseph Mathews’s Sundown or Sara Winnemuca Hopkins’s Life Among the Piutes until I was a grown woman because they were shelved in the anthropology section of the downtown library. I would never have thought to look there. At the time I didn’t know about anthropology or the way that tribal people were objectified. It was an inappropriate place to house Native American literature and it continues to amaze me that Native American autobiographies and novels are still shelved in the anthropology sections of many bookstores today. As I thought back on what I had missed, I also contemplated the history books I studied in school and the numerous books about Indians that did line the shelves of the bookmobile that serviced the eastern edge of Fort Worth, Texas, where I grew up. Most of those books had been written by men and women who, for the most part, had never even seen an Indian, much less known one. As a child, I didn’t pause to think about that. I think a great deal about it today because the lives depicted in the books I read then bore absolutely no resemblance to the lives of my neighbors or friends. I was a tenbook-a-week book-

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mobile reader, but I never came across an account of a Cherokee family that ran a small grocery store in the black part of town—like the people who lived in the big white house on the hill next to where I lived. I never saw a novel about an Osage boy who tended his mother’s goats and knew how to make cheese, as well as number one, grade A slingshots out of old tree branches and pieces of inner tube—like the boy who lived in the woods across the street from me. I never read a short story about a teenage Cheyenne girl, adopted by Mormons, taught to despise herself and her tribal religion, but promised that if she were good and followed all the rules she would be white when she died. I went to school with a girl who had experienced these things. In the books available to me as a child, Native Americans were usually exotic, cultural artifacts from the past, the stereotypical “Vanishing Americans,” sometimes portrayed as romantic or noble, but always backward savages on their way out, and soon to be no more. The truth is, we have not vanished, though we have often “disappeared” from the minds and hearts of America, even as we continue to be romanticized and exploited by various “New Age” philosophers who appropriate and distort Native American spiritual traditions, but never look for nourishment in their own ancient European tribal traditions. Thinking about all these things, I decided to use the opportunity of putting together this anthology as a chance to rectify, in some small way, the situation of my childhood, not only for myself and my own children, but for anyone, Indian or non-Indian, interested in the real-life experiences of Native American people. One of the most enjoyable aspects of this task is being able to include some of my favorite authors, such as Leslie Silko, Louise Erdrich, Michael Dorris, N. Scott Momaday, and Simon Ortiz. These writers have had an enormous impact on the way I have come to see myself and the world around me. Many of the stories I have chosen resonate for me on a deeply personal level as well. Joe Bruchac’s telling about his Abenaki grandfather who claimed to be French reminds me very much of my own grandmother. I’m especially fond of Geary Hobson’s “The Talking That Trees Does.” Each time I read it, I find myself transported all the way home to the moist southern air,

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the pungent earth smells, and the people that I still dream about almost every night. The young female protagonist in Vicki Sears’s story, “Grace,” brings to mind the Cheyenne girl I mentioned earlier, and makes me wonder if she was ever able to find her own personal “grace” to make it through. I hope she did and that she has been able to find her way home again as I have. Growing Up Native American is made up of the works of twentytwo Native American writers, women and men, from fifteen nations across the United States and Canada. I have included selections from Canada because the imaginary boundaries laid down between these two countries are nonexistent in the minds and hearts of tribal peoples. The anthology is divided into four sections with a brief introduction to each section. The stories in the first three sections are in chronological order. In most cases, I have enclosed the author’s tribal affiliation in parentheses. In the instances where I have not done this, references to tribal affiliation can be found either in the title or the biographical information preceding the story. Authors listed as Ojibway or Chippewa are members of the same nation. I have used whichever name the author herself or himself has chosen to use as a means of identification.

GOING FORWARD, LOOKING BACK

The languages and oral traditions of Native American peoples have carried the thoughts and beliefs of their ancestors forward to their descendants in contemporary America. Passed from generation to generation through storytelling, oral traditions represent living libraries containing thousands of years of knowledge and history about the world and how to be in it. From their first intervention, the United States government and Christian missionaries worked together to create a system of tribal education. This new system was designed to eradicate by force the use of native languages and to replace tribal stories with those drawn from Christianity in an effort to remake Native American people in the Euroamerican image. The cultural extirpation these policies inflicted has had a devastating effect on many Native Americans. However, there has always been resistance. Though numerous languages are no longer spoken, many do still remain in use, and others are experiencing a revival as more and more young people are moving to reclaim them. Countless oral traditions still flourish and continue to evolve as new Native American storytellers add their voices to those of their ancestors, making the transition from the spoken word to the printed page.

THE LANGUAGE WE KNOW Simon Ortiz

Ibetween n this autobiographical essay, Simon Ortiz addresses the relationship language and culture. He examines how the Acoma language and oral tradition he learned as a child nurtured him and shaped him into a poet and a writer. One of the finest contemporary Native American poets, Simon Ortiz (Acoma) was born in 1941 at Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico. He is a prolific writer whose book From Sand Creek won the Pushcart Prize for Poetry. His most recent publication is a collection of three of his earlier works entitled Woven Stone. I DON’T REMEMBER A WORLD WITHOUT LANGUAGE. FROM THE TIME of my earliest childhood, there was language. Always language, and imagination, speculation, utters of sound. Words, beginnings of words. What would I be without language? My existence has been determined by language, not only the spoken but the unspoken, the language of speech and the language of motion. I can’t remember a world without memory. Memory, immediate and far away in the past, something in the sinew, blood, ageless cell. Although I don’t recall the exact moment I spoke or tried to speak, I know the feeling of something tugging at the core of the mind, something unutterable uttered into existence. It is language that brings us into being in order to know life. My childhood was the oral tradition of the Acoma Pueblo people—Aaquumeh hano—which included my immediate family

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of three older sisters, two younger sisters, two younger brothers, and my mother and father. My world was our world of the Aaquumeh in McCartys, one of the two villages descended from the ageless mother pueblo of Acoma. My world was our Eagle clanpeople among other clans. I grew up in Deetziyamah, which is the Aaquumeh name for McCartys, which is posted at the exit off the present interstate highway in western New Mexico. I grew up within a people who farmed small garden plots and fields, who were mostly poor and not well schooled in the American system’s education. The language I spoke was that of a struggling people who held ferociously to a heritage, culture, language, and land despite the odds posed them by the forces surrounding them since 1540 A.D., the advent of EuroAmerican colonization. When I began school in 1948 at the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) day school in our village, I was armed with the basic ABC’s and the phrases “Good morning, Miss Oleman” and “May I please be excused to go to the bathroom,” but it was an older language that was my fundamental strength. In my childhood, the language we all spoke was Acoma, and it was a struggle to maintain it against the outright threats of corporal punishment, ostracism, and the invocation that it would impede our progress towards Americanization. Children in school were punished and looked upon with disdain if they did not speak and learn English quickly and smoothly, and so I learned it. It has occurred to me that I learned English simply because I was forced to, as so many other Indian children were. But I know, also, there was another reason, and this was that I loved language, the sound, meaning, and magic of language. Language opened up vistas of the world around me, and it allowed me to discover knowledge that would not be possible for me to know without the use of language. Later, when I began to experiment with and explore language in poetry and fiction, I allowed that a portion of that impetus was because I had come to know English through forceful acculturation. Nevertheless, the underlying force was the beauty and poetic power of language in its many forms that instilled in me the desire to become a user of language as a writer, singer, and storyteller. Significantly, it was the Acoma language, which I

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don’t use enough of today, that inspired me to become a writer. The concepts, values, and philosophy contained in my original language and the struggle it has faced have determined my life and vision as a writer. In Deetziyamah, I discovered the world of the Acoma land and people firsthand through my parents, sisters and brothers, and my own perceptions, voiced through all that encompasses the oral tradition, which is ageless for any culture. It is a small village, even smaller years ago, and like other Indian communities it is wealthy with its knowledge of daily event, history, and social system, all that make up a people who have a many-dimensioned heritage. Our family lived in a two-room home (built by my grandfather some years after he and my grandmother moved with their daughters from Old Acoma), which my father added rooms to later. I remember my father’s work at enlarging our home for our growing family. He was a skilled stoneworker, like many other men of an older Pueblo generation who worked with sandstone and mud mortar to build their homes and pueblos. It takes time, persistence, patience, and the belief that the walls that come to stand will do so for a long, long time, perhaps even forever. I like to think that by helping to mix mud and carry stone for my father and other elders I managed to bring that influence into my consciousness as a writer. Both my mother and my father were good storytellers and singers (as my mother is to this day—my father died in 1978), and for their generation, which was born soon after the turn of the century, they were relatively educated in the American system. Catholic missionaries had taken both of them as children to a parochial boarding school far from Acoma, and they imparted their discipline for study and quest for education to us children when we started school. But it was their indigenous sense of gaining knowledge that was most meaningful to me. Acquiring knowledge about life was above all the most important item; it was a value that one had to have in order to be fulfilled personally and on behalf of his community. And this they insisted upon imparting through the oral tradition as they

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told their children about our native history and our community and culture and our “stories.” These stories were common knowledge of act, event, and behavior in a close-knit pueblo. It was knowledge about how one was to make a living through work that benefited his family and everyone else. Because we were a subsistence farming people, or at least tried to be, I learned to plant, hoe weeds, irrigate and cultivate corn, chili, pumpkins, beans. Through counsel and advice I came to know that the rain which provided water was a blessing, gift, and symbol and that it was the land which provided for our lives. It was the stories and songs which provided the knowledge that I was woven into the intricate web that was my Acoma life. In our garden and our cornfields I learned about the seasons, growth cycles of cultivated plants, what one had to think and feel about the land; and at home I became aware of how we must care for each other: all of this was encompassed in an intricate relationship which had to be maintained in order that life continue. After supper on many occasions my father would bring out his drum and sing as we, the children, danced to themes about the rain, hunting, land, and people. It was all that is contained within the language of oral tradition that made me explicitly aware of a yet unarticulated urge to write, to tell what I had learned and was learning and what it all meant to me. My grandfather was old already when I came to know him. I was only one of his many grandchildren, but I would go with him to get wood for our households, to the garden to chop weeds, and to his sheep camp to help care for his sheep. I don’t remember his exact words, but I know they were about how we must sacredly concern ourselves with the people and the holy earth. I know his words were about how we must regard ourselves and others with compassion and love; I know that his knowledge was vast, as a medicine man and an elder of his kiva, and I listened as a boy should. My grandfather represented for me a link to the past that is important for me to hold in my memory because it is not only memory but knowledge that substantiates my present existence. He and the grandmothers and grandfathers before him thought about us as they lived, confirmed in their belief of a continuing life, and they brought

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our present beings into existence by the beliefs they held. The consciousness of that belief is what informs my present concerns with language, poetry, and fiction. My first poem was for Mother’s Day when I was in the fifth grade, and it was the first poem that was ever published, too, in the Skull Valley School newsletter. Of course I don’t remember how the juvenile poem went, but it must have been certain in its expression of love and reverence for the woman who was the most important person in my young life. The poem didn’t signal any prophecy of my future as a poet, but it must have come from the forming idea that there were things one could do with language and writing. My mother, years later, remembers how I was a child who always told stories—that is, tall tales—who always had explanations for things probably better left unspoken, and she says that I also liked to perform in school plays. In remembering, I do know that I was coming to that age when the emotions and thoughts in me began to moil to the surface. There was much to experience and express in that age when youth has a precociousness that is broken easily or made to flourish. We were a poor family, always on the verge of financial disaster, though our parents always managed to feed us and keep us in clothing. We had the problems, unfortunately ordinary, of many Indian families who face poverty on a daily basis, never enough of anything, the feeling of a denigrating self-consciousness, alcoholism in the family and community, the feeling that something was falling apart though we tried desperately to hold it all together. My father worked for the railroad for many years as a laborer and later as a welder. We moved to Skull Valley, Arizona, for one year in the early 1950s, and it was then that I first came in touch with a non-Indian, non-Acoma world. Skull Valley was a farming and ranching community, and my younger brothers and sisters and I went to a one-room school. I had never really had much contact with white people except from a careful and suspicious distance, but now here I was, totally surrounded by them, and there was nothing to do but bear the experience and learn from it. Although I perceived there was not much

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difference between them and us in certain respects, there was a distinct feeling that we were not the same either. This thought had been inculcated in me, especially by an Acoma expression—Gaimuu Mericano—that spoke of the “fortune” of being an American. In later years as a social activist and committed writer, I would try to offer a strong positive view of our collective Indianness through my writing. Nevertheless, my father was an inadequately paid laborer, and we were far from our home land for economic-social reasons, and my feelings and thoughts about that experience during that time would become a part of how I became a writer. Soon after, I went away from my home and family to go to boarding school, first in Santa Fe and then in Albuquerque. This was in the 1950s, and this had been the case for the past half-century for Indians: we had to leave home in order to become truly American by joining the mainstream, which was deemed to be the proper course of our lives. On top of this was termination, a U.S. government policy which dictated that Indians sever their relationship to the federal government and remove themselves from their lands and go to American cities for jobs and education. It was an era which bespoke the intent of U.S. public policy that Indians were no longer to be Indians. Naturally, I did not perceive this in any analytical or purposeful sense; rather, I felt an unspoken anxiety and resentment against unseen forces that determined our destiny to be un-Indian, embarrassed and uncomfortable with our grandparents’ customs and strictly held values. We were to set our goals as American working men and women, singlemindedly industrious, patriotic, and unquestioning, building for a future which ensured that the U.S. was the greatest nation in the world. I felt fearfully uneasy with this, for by then I felt the loneliness, alienation, and isolation imposed upon me by the separation from my family, home, and community. Something was happening; I could see that in my years at Catholic school and the U.S. Indian school. I remembered my grandparents’ and parents’ words: educate yourself in order to help your people. In that era and the generation who had the same experience I had, there was an unspoken vow: we were caught in a system inexorably, and we had to learn that system

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well in order to fight back. Without the motive of a fight-back we would not be able to survive as the people our heritage had lovingly bequeathed us. My diaries and notebooks began then, and though none have survived to the present, I know they contained the varied moods of a youth filled with loneliness, anger, and discomfort that seemed to have unknown causes. Yet at the same time, I realize now, I was coming to know myself clearly in a way that I would later articulate in writing. My love of language, which allowed me to deal with the world, to delve into it, to experiment and discover, held for me a vision of awe and wonder, and by then grammar teachers had noticed I was a good speller, used verbs and tenses correctly, and wrote complete sentences. Although I imagine that they might have surmised this as unusual for an Indian student whose original language was not English, I am grateful for their perception and attention. During the latter part of that era in the 1950s of Indian termination and the Cold War, a portion of which still exists today, there were the beginnings of a bolder and more vocalized resistance against the current U.S. public policies of repression, racism, and cultural ethnocide. It seemed to be inspired by the civil rights movement led by black people in the U.S. and by decolonization and liberation struggles worldwide. Indian people were being relocated from their rural homelands at an astonishingly devastating rate, yet at the same time they resisted the U.S. effort by maintaining determined ties with their heritage, returning often to their native communities and establishing Indian centers in the cities they were removed to. Indian rural communities, such as Acoma Pueblo, insisted on their land claims and began to initiate legal battles in the areas of natural and social, political and economic human rights. By the retention and the inspiration of our native heritage, values, philosophies, and language, we would know ourselves as a strong and enduring people. Having a modest and latent consciousness of this as a teenager, I began to write about the experience of being Indian in America. Although I had only a romanticized image of what a writer was, which came from the pulp rendered by

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American popular literature, and I really didn’t know anything about writing, I sincerely felt a need to say things, to speak, to release the energy of the impulse to help my people. My writing in my late teens and early adulthood was fashioned after the American short stories and poetry taught in the high schools of the 1940s and 1950s, but by the 1960s, after I had gone to college and dropped out and served in the military, I began to develop topics and themes from my Indian back-ground. The experience in my village of Deetziyamah and Acoma Pueblo was readily accessible. I had grown up within the oral tradition of speech, social and religious ritual, elders’ counsel and advice, countless and endless stories, everyday event, and the visual art that was symbolically representative of life all around. My mother was a potter of the well-known Acoma clayware, a traditional art form that had been passed to her from her mother and the generations of mothers before. My father carved figures from wood and did beadwork. This was not unusual, as Indian people know; there was always some kind of artistic endeavor that people set themselves to, although they did not necessarily articulate it as “Art” in the sense of Western civilization. One lived and expressed an artful life, whether it was in ceremonial singing and dancing, architecture, painting, speaking, or in the way one’s social-cultural life was structured. When I turned my attention to my own heritage, I did so because this was my identity, the substance of who I was, and I wanted to write about what that meant. My desire was to write about the integrity and dignity of an Indian identity, and at the same time I wanted to look at what this was within the context of an America that had too often denied its Indian heritage. To a great extent my writing has a natural political-cultural bent simply because I was nurtured intellectually and emotionally within an atmosphere of Indian resistance. Aacquu did not die in 1598 when it was burned and razed by European conquerors, nor did the people become hopeless when their children were taken away to U.S. schools far from home and new ways were imposed upon them. The Aaquumeh hano, despite losing much of their land and surrounded by a foreign civilization, have not lost sight of their native heritage. This is the factual

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case with most other Indian peoples, and the clear explanation for this has been the fight-back we have found it necessary to wage. At times, in the past, it was outright armed struggle, like that of presentday Indians in Central and South America with whom we must identify; currently, it is often in the legal arena, and it is in the field of literature. In 1981, when I was invited to the White House for an event celebrating American poets and poetry, I did not immediately accept the invitation. I questioned myself about the possibility that I was merely being exploited as an Indian, and I hedged against accepting. But then I recalled the elders going among our people in the poor days of the 1950s, asking for donations—a dollar here and there, a sheep, perhaps a piece of pottery—in order to finance a trip to the nation’s capital. They were to make another countless appeal on behalf of our people, to demand justice, to reclaim lost land even though there was only spare hope they would be successful. I went to the White House realizing that I was to do no less than they and those who had fought in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and I read my poems and sang songs that were later described as “guttural” by a Washington, D.C., newspaper. I suppose it is more or less understandable why such a view of Indian literature is held by many, and it is also clear why there should be a political stand taken in my writing and those of my sister and brother Indian writers. The 1960s and afterward have been an invigorating and liberating period for Indian people. It has been only a little more than twenty years since Indian writers began to write and publish extensively, but we are writing and publishing more and more; we can only go forward. We come from an ageless, continuing oral tradition that informs us of our values, concepts, and notions as native people, and it is amazing how much of this tradition is ingrained so deeply in our contemporary writing, considering the brutal efforts of cultural repression that was not long ago outright U.S. policy. We were not to speak our languages, practice our spiritual beliefs, or accept the values of our past generations; and we were discouraged from pressing for our natural rights as Indian human beings. In spite of the

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fact that there is to some extent the same repression today, we persist and insist in living, believing, hoping, loving, speaking, and writing as Indians. This is embodied in the language we know and share in our writing. We have always had this language, and it is the language, spoken and unspoken, that determines our existence, that brought our grandmothers and grandfathers and ourselves into being in order that there be a continuing life.

THE WARRIORS Anna Lee Walters

O ne of the most acute difficulties for Native Americans today is trying to maintain a sense of balance and live with cultural integrity in a society that places a high value on assimilation and devalues tribal cultures. Anna Lee Walters’s thoughtful short story, “The Warriors,” chronicles the struggle of Uncle Ralph, a contemporary cultural warrior, as he strives to keep beauty alive in a world that seems to have ceased believing in it. His love and steadfast instruction in the traditions of the Pawnee people inspire his two nieces to carry on, giving them the strength and courage they need to make a way for themselves in contemporary America. Anna Lee Walters (Pawnee-Otoe-Missouria), is the director of the Navajo Community College Press in Tsaile, Arizona. She is the author of The Sun Is Not Merciful, a collection of short stories, Ghost Singer, a novel, and the co-author of The Sacred: Ways of Knowledge, Sources of Life. IN OUR YOUTH, WE SAW HOBOS COME AND GO, SLIDING BY OUR faded white house like wary cats who did not want us too close. Sister and I waved at the strange procession of passing men and women hobos. Just between ourselves, Sister and I talked of that hobo parade. We guessed at and imagined the places and towns we thought the hobos might have come from or had been. Mostly they were White or Black people. But there were

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Indian hobos too. It never occurred to Sister and me that this would be Uncle Ralph’s end. Sister and I were little and Uncle Ralph came to visit us. He lifted us over his head and shook us around him like gourd rattles. He was Momma’s younger brother and he could have disciplined us if he so desired. That was part of our custom. But he never did. Instead, he taught us Pawnee words. “Pari’ is Pawnee and pita is man,” he said. Between the words, he tapped out drumbeats with his fingers on the table top, ghost dance and round dance songs that he suddenly remembered and sang. His melodic voice lilted over us and hung around the corners of the house for days. His stories of life and death were fierce and gentle. Warriors dangled in delicate balance. He told us his version of the story of Pahukatawa, a Skidi Pawnee warrior. He was killed by the Sioux but the animals, feeling compassion for him, brought Pahukatawa to life again. “The Evening Star and the Morning Star bore children and some people say that these offspring are who we are,” he often said. At times he pointed to those stars and greeted them by their Pawnee names. He liked to pray. He prayed for Sister and me and for everyone and every tiny thing in the world, but we never heard him ask for anything for himself from Atius, the Father. “For beauty is why we live,” Uncle Ralph said when he talked of precious things only the Pawnees know. “We die for it too.” He called himself an ancient Pawnee warrior when he was quite young. He told us that warriors must brave all storms and odds and stand their ground. He knew intimate details of every battle the Pawnees ever fought since Pawnee time began, and Sister and I knew even then that Uncle Ralph had a great battlefield of his own. As a child I thought that Uncle Ralph had been born into the wrong time. The Pawnees had been ravaged so often by then. The tribe of several thousand at its peak over a century before were then a few hundred people who had been closely confined for over a century. The warrior life was gone. Uncle Ralph was trapped in a transparent bubble of a new time. The bubble bound him tight as it blew around us.

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Uncle Ralph talked obsessively of warriors, painted proud warriors who shrieked poignant battle cries at the top of their lungs and died with honor. Sister and I were very little then, lost from him in the world of children who saw everything with children’s eyes. And though we saw with wide eyes the painted warriors that he fantasized and heard their fierce and haunting battle cries, we did not hear his. Now that we are old and Uncle Ralph has been gone for a long time, Sister and I know that when he died, he was tired and alone. But he was a warrior. The hobos were always around in our youth. Sister and I were curious about them and this curiosity claimed much of our time. They crept by the house at all hours of the day and night, dressed in rags and odd clothing. They wandered to us from the railroad tracks where they had leaped from slow-moving box cars onto the flatland. They hid in high clumps of weeds and brush that ran along the fence near the tracks. The hobos usually travelled alone, but Sister and I saw them come together, like poor families, to share a tin of beans or sardines they ate with sticks or twigs. Uncle Ralph watched them from a distance too. One early morning, Sister and I crossed the tracks on our way to school and collided with a tall haggard whiteman. He wore a very old-fashioned pin-striped black jacket covered with lint and soot. There was fright in his eyes when they met ours. He scurried around us, quickening his pace. The pole over his shoulder where his possessions hung in a bundle at the end bounced as he nearly ran from us. “Looks just like a scared jackrabbit,” Sister said as she watched him dart away. That evening we told Momma about the scared man. She warned us about the dangers of hobos as our father threw us a stern look. Uncle Ralph was visiting but he didn’t say anything. He stayed the night and Sister asked him, “Hey, Uncle Ralph, why do you suppose they’s hobos?” Uncle Ralph was a large man. He took Sister and put her on one knee. “You see, Sister,” he said, “hobos are a different kind. They see things in a different way. Them hobos are kind

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of like us. We’re not like other people in some ways and yet we are. It has to do with what you see and feel when you look at this old world.” His answer satisfied Sister for a while and he taught us some more Pawnee words that night. Not long after Uncle Ralph’s explanation, Sister and I surprised a Black man with white whiskers and fuzzy hair. He was climbing through the barbed wire fence that marked our property line. He wore faded blue over-alls with pockets stuffed full of handkerchiefs. He wiped sweat from his face and when it dried he looked up and saw us. I remembered what Uncle Ralph had said and wondered what the Black man saw when he looked at us standing there. “We might scare him,” Sister said softly to me, remembering the whiteman who had scampered away. Sister whispered, “Hi,” to the Black man. Her voice was barely audible. “Boy, it’s shore hot,” he said. His voice was big and he smiled. “Where are you going?” Sister asked. “Me? Nowheres, I guess,” he muttered. “Then what you doing here?” Sister went on. She was bold for a seven-year-old kid. I was a year older but I was also more quiet. “This here place is ours,” she said. He looked around and saw our house with its flowering mimosa trees and rich green, mowed lawn stretching out before him. Other houses sat around ours. “I reckon I’m lost,” he said. Sister pointed to the weeds and brush further up the road. “That’s where you want to go. That’s where they all go, the hobos.” I tried to quiet Sister but she didn’t hush. “The hobos stay up there,” she said. “You a hobo?” He ignored her question and asked his own, “Say, what is you all? You not Black, you not White. What is you all? Sister looked at me. She put one hand on her chest and the other hand on me, “We Indians!” Sister said. He stared at us and smiled again. “Is that a fact?” he said. “Know what kind of Indians we are?” Sister asked him.

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He shook his fuzzy head. “Indians is Indians, I guess,” he said. Sister wrinkled her forehead and retorted, “Not us! We not like others. We see things different. We’re Pawnees. We’re warriors!” I pushed my elbow into Sister’s side. She quieted. The man was looking down the road and he shuffled his feet. “I’d best go,” he said. Sister pointed to the brush and weeds one more time. “That way,” she said. He climbed back through the fence and brush as Sister yelled, “Bye now!” She waved a damp handkerchief. Sister and I didn’t tell Momma and Dad about the Black man. But much later Sister told Uncle Ralph every word that had been exchanged with the Black man. Uncle Ralph listened and smiled. Months later when the warm weather had cooled and Uncle Ralph came to stay with us for a couple of weeks, Sister and I went to the hobo place. We had planned it for a long time. That afternoon when we pushed away the weeds, not a hobo was in sight. The ground was packed down tight in the clearing among the high weeds. We walked around the encircling brush and found folded cardboards stacked together. Burned cans in assorted sizes were stashed under the cardboards and there were remains of old fires. Rags were tied to the brush, snapping in the hard wind. Sister said, “Maybe they’re all in the box cars now. It’s starting to get cold.” She was right. The November wind had a bite to it and the cold stung our hands and froze our breaths as we spoke. “You want to go over to them box cars?” she asked. We looked at the Railroad Crossing sign where the box cars stood. I was prepared to answer when a voice roared from somewhere behind us. “Now, you young ones, you git on home! Go on! Git!” A man crawled out of the weeds and looked angrily at us. His eyes were red and his face was unshaven. He wore a red plaid shirt with striped gray and black pants too large for him. His face was swollen and bruised. An old woolen pink scarf hid

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some of the bruise marks around his neck and his top coat was splattered with mud. Sister looked at him. She stood close to me and told him defiantly, “You can’t tell us what to do! You don’t know us!” He didn’t answer Sister but tried to stand. He couldn’t. Sister ran to him and took his arm and pulled on it. “You need help?” she questioned. He frowned at her but let us help him. He was tall. He seemed to be embarrassed by our help. “You Indian, ain’t you?” I dared to ask him. He didn’t answer me but looked at his feet as if they could talk so he wouldn’t have to. His feet were in big brown overshoes. “Who’s your people?” Sister asked. He looked to be about Uncle Ralph’s age when he finally lifted his face and met mine. He didn’t respond for a minute. Then he sighed. “I ain’t got no people,” he told us as he tenderly stroked his swollen jaw. “Sure you got people. Our folks says a man’s always got people,” I said softly. The wind blew our clothes and covered the words. But he heard. He exploded like a firecracker. “Well, I don’t! I ain’t got no people! I ain’t got nobody!” “What you doing out here anyway?” Sister asked. “You hurt? You want to come over to our house?” “Naw,” he said. “Now you little ones, go on home. Don’t be walking round out here. Didn’t nobody tell you little girls ain’t supposed to be going round by themselves. You might git hurt.” “We just wanted to talk to hobos,” Sister said. “Naw, you don’t. Just go on home. Your folks is probably looking for you and worrying bout you.” I took Sister’s arm and told her we were going home. Then we said “Bye” to the man. But Sister couldn’t resist a few last words, “You Indian, ain’t you?” He nodded his head like it was a painful thing to do. “Yeah, I’m Indian.” “You ought to go on home yourself,” Sister said. “Your folks probably looking for you and worrying bout you.” His voice rose again as Sister and I walked away from him.

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“I told you kids, I don’t have any people!” There was exasperation in his voice. Sister would not be outdone. She turned and yelled, “Oh yeah? You Indian, ain’t you? Ain’t you?” she screamed, “We your people!” His top-coat and pink scarf flapped in the wind as we turned away from him. We went home to Momma and Dad and Uncle Ralph then. Uncle Ralph met us at the front door. “Where you all been?” he asked and looked toward the railroad tracks. Momma and Dad were talking in the kitchen. “Just playing, Uncle,” Sister and I said simultaneously. Uncle Ralph grabbed both Sister and I by our hands and yanked us out the door. “Awkuh!” he said, using the Pawnee expression to show his dissatisfaction. Outside, we sat on the cement porch. Uncle Ralph was quiet for a long time and neither Sister or I knew what to expect. “I want to tell you all a story,” he finally said. “Once, there were these two rats who ran around everywhere and got into everything all the time. Everything they were told not to do, well, they went right out and did. They’d get into one mess and then another. It seems that they never could learn.” At that point Uncle Ralph cleared his throat. He looked at me and said, “Sister, do you understand this story? Is it too hard for you? You’re older.” I nodded my head up and down and said, “I understand.” Then Uncle Ralph looked at Sister. He said to her, “Sister, do I need to go on with this story?” Sister shook her head from side to side. “Naw, Uncle Ralph,” she said. “So you both know how this story ends?” he said gruffly. Sister and I bobbed our heads up and down again. We followed at his heels the rest of the day. When he tightened the loose hide on top of his drum, we watched him and held it in place as he laced the wet hide down. He got his drumsticks down from the top shelf of the closet and began to pound the drum slowly. “Where you going, Uncle Ralph?” I asked. Sister and I knew

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that when he took his drum out, he was always gone shortly after. “I have to be a drummer at some doings tomorrow,” he said. “You a good singer, Uncle Ralph,” Sister said. “You know all them old songs.” “The young people nowadays, it seems they don’t care bout nothing that’s old. They just want to go to the Moon.” He was drumming low as he spoke. “We care, Uncle Ralph,” Sister said. “Why?” Uncle Ralph asked in a hard challenging tone that he seldom used on us. Sister thought for a minute and then said, “I guess because you care so much, Uncle Ralph.” His eyes softened and he said, “I’ll sing you an Eruska song, a song for the warriors.” The song he sang was a war dance song. At first Sister and I listened attentively but then Sister began to dance the man’s dance. She had never danced before and she tried to imitate what she had seen. Her chubby body whirled and jumped the way she’d seen the men dance. Her head tilted from side to side the way the men moved theirs. I laughed aloud at her clumsy effort and Uncle Ralph laughed heartily too. Uncle Ralph went in and out of our lives after that. We heard that he sang at one place and then another, and people came to Momma to find him. They said that he was only one of a few who knew the old ways and the songs. When he came to visit us, he always brought something to eat. The Pawnee custom was that the man, the warrior, should bring food, preferably meat. Then whatever food was brought to the host was prepared and served to the man, the warrior, along with the host’s family. Many times Momma and I, or Sister and I, came home to an empty house to find a sack of food on the table. I or Momma cooked it for the next meal and Uncle Ralph showed up to eat. As Sister and I grew older, our fascination with the hobos decreased. Other things took our time, and Uncle Ralph did not appear as frequently as he did before. Once while I was home alone, I picked up Momma’s old

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photo album. Inside was a gray photo of Uncle Ralph in an army uniform. Behind him were tents on a flat terrain. Other photos showed other poses but in only one picture did he smile. All the photos were written over in black ink in Momma’s handwriting. “Ralphie in Korea,” the writing said. Other photos in the album showed our Pawnee relatives. Dad was from another tribe. Momma’s momma was in the album, a tiny grayhaired woman who no longer lived. And Momma’s momma’s Dad was in the album; he wore old Pawnee leggings and the long feathers of a dark bird sat upon his head. I closed the album when Momma, Dad, and Sister came home. Momma went into the kitchen to cook. She called me and Sister to help. As she put on a bibbed apron, she said, “We just came from town, and we saw someone from home there.” She meant someone from her tribal community. “This man told me that Ralphie’s been drinking hard,” she said sadly. “He used to do that quite a bit a long time ago but we thought that it had stopped. He seemed to be alright for a few years.” We cooked and then ate in silence. Washing the dishes, I asked Momma, “How come Uncle Ralph never did marry?” Momma looked up at me but was not surprised by my question. She answered, “I don’t know, Sister. It would have been better if he had. There was one woman who I thought he really loved. I think he still does. I think it had something to do with Mom. She wanted him to wait.” “Wait for what?” I asked. “I don’t know,” Momma said and sank into a chair. After that we heard unsettling rumors of Uncle Ralph drinking here and there. He finally came to the house once when only I happened to be home. He was haggard and tired. His appearance was much like that of the whiteman that Sister and I met on the railroad tracks years before. I opened the door when he tapped on it. Uncle Ralph looked years older than his age. He brought food in his arms. “Nowa, Sister,” he said in greeting. “Where’s the other one?” He meant Sister.

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“She’s gone now, Uncle Ralph. School in Kansas,” I answered. “Where you been, Uncle Ralph? We been worrying about you.” He ignored my question and said, “I bring food. The warrior brings home food. To his family, to his people.” His face was lined and had not been cleaned for days. He smelled of cheap wine. I asked again, “Where you been, Uncle Ralph?” He forced himself to smile. “Pumpkin Flower,” he said, using the Pawnee name, “I’ve been out with my warriors all this time.” He put one arm around me as we went to the kitchen table with the food. “That’s what your Pawnee name is. Now don’t forget it.” “Did somebody bring you here, Uncle Ralph, or are you on foot?” I asked him. “I’m on foot,” he answered. “Where’s your Momma?” I told him that she and Dad would be back soon, I started to prepare the food he brought. Then I heard Uncle Ralph say, “Life is sure hard sometimes. Sometimes it seems I just can’t go on.” “What’s wrong, Uncle Ralph?” I asked. Uncle Ralph let out a bitter little laugh. “What’s wrong?” he repeated. “What’s wrong? All my life, I’ve tried to live what I’ve been taught but, Pumpkin Flower, some things are all wrong!” He took a folded pack of Camel cigarettes from his coat pocket. His hand shook as he pulled one from the pack and lit the end. “Too much drink,” he said sadly. “That stuff is bad for us.” “What are you trying to do, Uncle Ralph?” I then asked. “Live,” he said. He puffed on the shaking cigarette awhile and said, “The old people said to live beautifully with prayers and song. Some died for beauty too.” “How do we do that, Uncle Ralph, live for beauty?” I asked. “It’s simple, Pumpkin Flower,” he said. “Believe!” “Believe what?” I asked.

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He looked at me hard. “Aw-kuh!” he said, “that’s one of the things that is wrong. Everyone questions. Everyone doubts. No one believes in the old ways anymore. They want to believe when it’s convenient, when it doesn’t cost them anything and when they get something in return. There are no more believers. There are no more warriors. They are all gone. Those who are left only want to go to the Moon.” A car drove up outside. It was Momma and Dad. Uncle Ralph heard it too. He slumped in the chair, resigned to whatever Momma would say to him. Momma came in first. Dad then greeted Uncle Ralph and disappeared into the back of the house. Custom and etiquette required that Dad, who was not a member of Momma’s tribe, allow Momma to handle her brother’s problems. She hugged Uncle Ralph. Her eyes filled with tears when she saw how thin he was and how his hands shook. “Ralphie,” she said, “you look awful but I am glad to see you.” She then spoke to him of everyday things, how the car failed to start and the latest gossip. He was silent, tolerant of the passing of time in this way. His eyes sent me a pleading look while his hands shook and he tried to hold them still. When supper was ready, Uncle Ralph went to wash himself for the meal. When he returned to the table, he was calm. His hands didn’t shake so much. At first he ate without many words, but in the course of the meal he left the table twice. Each time he came back, he was more talkative than before, answering Momma’s questions in Pawnee. He left the table a third time and Dad rose. Dad said to Momma, “He’s drinking again. Can’t you tell?” Dad left the table and went outside. Momma frowned. A determined look grew on her face. When Uncle Ralph sat down to the table once more, Momma told him, “Ralphie, you’re my brother but I want you to leave now. Come back when you are sober.” He held a tarnished spoon in mid-air and he put it down slowly. He hadn’t finished eating but he didn’t seem to mind leaving. He stood, looked at me with his red eyes and went to

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the door. Momma followed him. In a low voice, she said, “Ralphie, you’ve got to stop drinking and wandering—or don’t come to see us again.” He pulled himself to his full height then. His frame filled the doorway. He leaned over Momma and yelled, “Who are you? Are you God that you will say what will be or will not be?” Momma met his angry eyes. She stood firm and did not back down. His eyes finally dropped from her face to the linoleum floor. A cough came from deep in his throat. “I’ll leave here,” he said. “But I’ll get all my warriors and come back! I have thousands of warriors and they’ll ride with me. We’ll get our bows and arrows. Then we’ll come back!” He staggered out the door. In the years that followed, Uncle Ralph saw us only when he was sober. He visited less and less. When he did show up, he did a tapping ritual on our front door. We welcomed the rare visits. Occasionally he stayed at our house for a few days at a time when he was not drinking. He slept on the floor. He did odd jobs for minimum pay but never complained about the work or money. He’d acquired a vacant look in his eyes. It was the same look that Sister and I had seen in the hobos when we were children. He wore a similar careless array of clothing and carried no property with him at all. The last time he came to the house, he called me by my English name and asked if I remembered anything of all that he’d taught me. His hair had turned pure white. He looked older than anyone I knew. I marvelled at his appearance and said, “I remember everything.” That night I pointed out his stars for him and told him how Pahukatawa lived and died and lived again through another’s dreams. I’d grown and Uncle Ralph could not hold me on his knee anymore. His arm circled my waist while we sat on the grass. He was moved by my recitation and clutched my hand tightly. He said, “It’s more than this. It’s more than just repeating words. You know that, don’t you?” I nodded my head. “Yes, I know. The recitation is the easiest part but it’s more than this, Uncle Ralph.” He was quiet but after a few minutes his hand touched my

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shoulder. He said, “I couldn’t make it work. I tried to fit the pieces.” “I know,” I said. “Now before I go,” he said, “do you know who you are?” The question took me by surprise. I thought very hard. I cleared my throat and told him, “I know that I am fourteen. I know that it’s too young.” “Do you know that you are a Pawnee?” he asked in a choked whisper. “Yes, Uncle,” I said. “Good,” he said with a long sigh that was swallowed by the night. Then he stood and said, “Well, Sister, I have to go. Have to move on.” “Where are you going?” I asked. “Where all the warriors go?” I teased. He managed a smile and a soft laugh. “Yeah, wherever the warriors are, I’ll find them.” “Before you go,” I asked, “Uncle Ralph, can women be warriors too?” He laughed again and hugged me merrily. “Don’t tell me you want to be one of the warriors too?” “No, Uncle,” I said, “Just one of yours.” I hated to let him go because I knew that I would not see him again. He pulled away. His last words were, “Don’t forget what I’ve told you all these years. It’s the only chance not to become what everyone else is. Do you understand?” I nodded and he left. I never saw him again. The years passed quickly. I moved away from Momma and Dad and married. Sister left them before I did. Years later in another town, hundreds of miles away, I awoke in a terrible gloom, a sense that something was gone from the world the Pawnees knew. The despair filled days though the reason for the sense of loss went unexplained. Finally, the telephone rang. Momma was on the line. She said, “Sister came home for a few days not too long ago. While she was here and alone, someone came and tapped on the door, like Ralphie always does. Sister yelled, ‘Is that you, Uncle Ralph? Come on in.’ But no one entered.”

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Then I understood, Uncle Ralph was dead. Momma probably knew too. She wept softly into the phone. Later Momma received an official call that confirmed Uncle Ralph’s death. He had died from exposure in a hobo shanty, near the railroad tracks outside a tiny Oklahoma town. He’d been dead for several days and nobody knew but Momma, Sister and me. The funeral was well attended by the Pawnee people, Momma reported to me as I did not attend. Uncle Ralph and I had said our farewells years earlier. Momma told me that someone there had spoken well of Uncle Ralph before they put him in the ground. It was said that “Ralph came from a fine family, an old line of warriors.” Ten years later, Sister and I visited briefly at Momma’s and Dad’s home. We had been separated by hundreds of miles for all that time. As we sat under Momma’s flowering mimosa trees, I made a confession to Sister. I said, “Sometimes I wish that Uncle Ralph were here. I’m a grown woman but I still miss him after all these years.” Sister nodded her head in agreement. I continued. “He knew so many things. He knew why the sun pours its liquid all over us and why it must do just that. He knew why babes and insects crawl. He knew that we must live beautifully or not live at all.” Sister’s eyes were thoughtful but she waited to speak while I went on. “To live beautifully from day to day is a battle that warriors have to plot for as long as they can. It’s a battle all the way. The things that he knew are so beautiful. And to feel and know that kind of beauty is the reason that we should live at all. Uncle Ralph said so. But now, there is no one who knows what that beauty is or any of the other things that he knew.” Sister pushed back smoky gray wisps of her dark hair. “You do,” she pronounced. “And I do too.” “Why do you suppose he left us like that?” I asked. “It couldn’t be helped,” Sister said. “There was a battle on.” “I wanted to be one of his warriors,” I said with an embarrassed half-smile. She leaned over and patted my hand. “You are,” she said. Then she stood and placed one hand on her bosom and one hand on my arm. “We’ll carry on,” she said.

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I touched her hand resting on my arm. I said, “Sister, tell me again. What is the battle for?” She looked down toward the fence where a hobo was coming through. We waved at him. “Beauty,” she said to me. “Our battle is for beauty. It’s what Uncle Ralph fought for too. He often said that everyone else just wanted to go to the Moon. But remember, Sister, you and I done been there. Don’t forget that, after all, we’re children of the stars.”

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Native American tribes in the east and southwest had been engaged in a struggle for their lives and lands for more than 260 years. The arrival of the 1800s with its thrust of western expansion brought further chaos and upheaval to tribal peoples across North America. The United States’ expansion west marked the end of a life of selfgoverning freedom and the beginning of a life of enforced constraint. Reservations were established. The policy of allotment, which broke up commonly held lands into individual homestead parcels, was imposed to divest Native Americans of their communal traditions and pave the way for assimilation. Treaty making was abolished. Many Native American spiritual practices and ceremonies were outlawed. And tribes were reduced to colonial subject status and declared wards of the federal government. During this period, the American thirst for land resulted in the forced removal to Oklahoma of the Southeastern tribes as well as the tribes from the Great Lakes. Their journey is known as the Trial of Tears and it resulted in thousands of deaths. Tribes that were allowed to remain in their homelands found their lands reduced to mere remnants of the territories they had once inhabited. Other tribal groups fled farther and farther away from ancestral homelands in a desperate attempt to avoid the onslaught of settlers and soldiers and to regain some control over their own lives.

from WATERLILY Ella Cara Deloria

S et in the mid-nineteenth century and rich in cultural detail, Ella Cara Deloria’s novel Waterlily tells the story of what life was like for a traditional Dakota woman from infancy to early adulthood. This selection reveals the warmth of family life, the intricate web of reciprocity and responsibility that is kinship, and the depth of what it means to be honored as a hunka, a child-beloved. Ella Cara Deloria (Dakota/Sioux) was born in 1889 on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. Considered an authority on the language and lifeways of her Dakota people, she worked closely with the American anthropologist, Franz Boas. During her lifetime, she produced several books, including Speaking of Indians and a bilingual collection of her people’s mythology entitled Dakota Texts. Ella Cara Deloria died in 1971. WHEN TETON CHILDREN COULD BE REASONED WITH THEY WERE then said to have their senses. Waterlily was past six winters and going on her seventh when this could be truly said of her. Before that time, many things that happened were known to her, but not always because she remembered them in sequence. Rather, she knew them from repeated accounts of them. And how she loved those recitals of her early doings and sayings—so much that she came to think she remembered them as they had occurred. “Mother, what was that I did before I was even two winters old?” she would insist, while Blue Bird pretended to forget the

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story she especially liked to hear over and over. “Let me think…You did so many things, I hardly know…” And then, finally, “Oh, yes, for one thing, you once forecast the weather.” “Did I really, Mother?” she would ask, surprised all over again. “What did I say?” “You said nothing. You were too small to talk yet. But you toddled into our tipi with two sticks for the fire. We did not need a fire, for it was summer, and very warm. We did not ask for fuel.” “Oh! And then?” “Well, then”—Blue Bird always had to smile into the eager upturned face at this point—“And then you seated yourself by the fireplace and warmed your hands.” Waterlily would laugh merrily. “And what did Grandmotherkilled-by-the-tree say to that?” Blue Bird’s old grandmother who was killed by a falling limb was of course unknown to Waterlily, but because her way of dying was a familiar story, Waterlily had so named her. “She said, ‘Hina! This means we are going to have a hard winter, sure! Children do not pretend cold weather for nothing.’” This was the place for a long, thoughtful pause, always. And then Waterlily asked, much impressed with her power, “And did we have a hard winter, Mother?” She knew the answer very well, but it was good to hear it again. “Very hard. One of the worst our people could remember. There was snow and more snow. Men could not hunt and no buffalo came near, and our food gave out and many people died. A very hard winter indeed; may we never know another like the one you predicted.” “Oh, my!” Waterlily would say with awe, her amazement renewed with each telling. “How did I know that, Mother?” And Blue Bird would say, “Well, how did you?” and they would laugh, and the interview would end very satisfactorily to Waterlily. She liked to go over her past with Gloku, too. “Grandmother, what did I do when you carried me on your back?” “You were such a lively little girl—never quiet. You used to take my two braids for reins as if you were on horseback, and pull first this way and then that way until you had my eyelids

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stretched back so far that it is a wonder I did not fall into a gopher hole with you on my back!” This was very amusing. Waterlily would clap her hands and laugh, and ask, “Did it hurt, Grandmother?” But Gloku would say, “I forget if it hurt. I only remember how you enjoyed yourself.” Then Blue Bird would cut in, defending her mother-in-law, who was always too indulgent of her grandchildren, Waterlily included. “It was not funny, Waterlily. You were naughty to hurt your grandmother. How would you like your two braids pulled?” Waterlily would not like it at all. But those had been days when she did not know any better and nothing she did could be held against her. Now, going on seven, she was growing more and more accountable and able to remember past experiences and to be guided by them. And that was because she had her senses at last—her senses and her memory; it was all one. The autumn day was raw and overcast when Gloku took her dogs and went after fuel, leaving Waterlily and her grandfather in the tipi. “You are a big girl, now, grandchild. Remember to hand water to your grandfather when he is thirsty. That is why your mother wants you to stay with him while I am gone.” The energetic Gloku set her tipi to rights while she said this. She hung all the food high up on the tipi poles, beyond the reach of dogs that might stray in. Then she made her old man comfortable. His sight, which had been failing for years, was now practically gone and he had to have things handed to him that were not close by. So before leaving him alone, Gloku always seated him exactly right, where he could blow the ashes from his pipe into the fire. He was able to fill and light his pipe and to clean it out when he finished, having developed the habit during the last few years by sitting with eyes shut and doing things by feel, as though preparing for total blindness. At least he was already well able to take care of his smoking needs. The old man sat silently, with thoughts of his past activities. Waterlily threw back the fur rug and set up her play tipi on the ground for a pleasant time with her little dolls. She assigned them different roles and invented simple situations such as came up in the family. She carried on a spirited conversation as though the dolls were talking. After a long time she remembered her

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duty. “Grandfather! Grandfather! Water!” She held some water out to him. He groped for the dipper, saying “Hao, grandchild,” by ways of thanks, and drank noisily. Soon he was back into his reverie, and Waterlily played on until she felt hungry. Opening out the container of food her grandmother had left for them, she offered some to the old man and then started to eat. But the food did not taste as good as that sweetened cake of pemmican hanging high up on the tipi pole. Suddenly she wanted some of it, so badly that she piled up many rawhide cases full of dried meat until she could reach it by standing on them. It was of a pemmican base, filled with wild fruits and held together in a hard cake by rich oils derived from bones. A little of it was enough, for it was the richest delicacy there was. But Waterlily ate and ate and could not leave off, until she began to feel miserable in her stomach. She was lying very still when Gloku returned. She could hear her outside feeding and thanking her dogs as she unhitched them. The old man called out, “Are you back?” He knew she was, but this was their way of saying hello. “Yes,” she replied. “I am back.” As she entered, he said, “You better see what the child has been up to. For a long time she played very nicely with her dolls. But since we ate our meal, she has been very still, and for a child to be that still is a bad sign. It seemed to me she was moving heavy things about and reaching upward—to judge by her grunting efforts. For a time she was all over the place and then she became very silent. I called to her, but she did not answer. See if something is wrong.” Very soon Gloku discovered the half-eaten pemmican cake and let out a cry of distress that brought her daughters and Waterlily’s mother running. “My grandchild has sickened herself! Oh, what is to be done?” Her only concern was for the child; that the pemmican cake was largely a loss was something she had no time to think of. But she did turn on the old man. “And you! Here you sit placid while terrible things go on! You might have called out to the others—our tipis all but touch!” Not a word from him. Waterlily’s aunts and mother tried to force medicine down her throat, but it seemed to Waterlily that the tipi was turning

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round and round. The tipi poles meeting overhead were a great spider web spinning rapidly; the anxious faces of the women whirled with the web until they were all of a piece, slowly fading into darkness. Fainting was considered the opening step in the dying process. To give in was to surrender to death. If the one fainting were allowed to recline and lose consciousness, permanent death could ensue. With such beliefs, the women shook the ailing girl and kept her in a sitting position though she toppled this way and that. They continually dashed water in her face. Gloku kept saying as she rubbed Waterlily’s cold wrists and temples, “Do not forget, grandchild. Keep remembering, or you will die.” Remembering also meant being conscious. But Waterlily was not frightened by the threat of dying; it was not important. “Let me alone. I just want to lie still,” she moaned. The medicine eased her enough that she finally slept normally while her relatives sat around her all night. Early next morning the first person she saw was her stepfather, Rainbow. Never had he spoken directly to her till now; always at a distance had he provided her wants dutifully. Waterlily, closer to his mother and father, felt herself a stranger to her silent stepfather. But now his worried eyes said he was very much affected. “Daughter,” he spoke to her, “I have tried in my humble way to provide for you because I do not want any child in my tipi to grow up in want. Yesterday you gave me a great fright, but if you will hurry and get well, then by and by you shall wear a gown and put red paint on your face.” It was not a very exciting promise to Waterlily. What was so extraordinary about wearing a gown, when one had always worn a gown? And red paint? She had worn that, too. But to the adults who understood the significance it was very important, for Rainbow was saying he would arrange and pay for a hunka ceremony for Waterlily. To become a hunka (child-beloved) was to be elevated to a high station in the tribe, and that was an honor that did not come to everyone. Rainbow began at once to hunt for elk and to watch the hunting of other men so that he might buy from those who shot an elk the teeth that would be needed to decorate Waterlily’s ceremonial gown. People were much impressed and spread the

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news about. “Have you heard? Rainbow is pledged to a great undertaking. He is making that little daughter of his wife a ‘beloved.’ Right now he is collecting elk teeth for her gown.” Everyone helped. But it was slow work because each animal yielded only two teeth that could be used. Moreover they must come only from the female elk. So widespread was the interest that even hunters from other camp circles saved elk teeth for Rainbow and sent or brought them to him from time to time. For these that were proffered he gave suitable presents in return. Only where he asked for teeth outright did he buy them. When enough elk teeth were on hand, his sister Dream Woman made the gown; and it was something to behold. Many women, especially those who fancied themselves to be inspired artists, as Dream Woman was believed to be though she never said, came in to examine the finished gown and went away marveling at its beauty of material and workmanship. As usual, Dream Woman had dreamed an original design. It was worked into the wide border of embroidery that topped the heavy fringe around the bottom of the skirt and of the loose, open sleeves. The matched teeth, which had been painstakingly polished to a high luster by the grandfather, who was happy to help to that extent, were appliquéed in pleasing groups all over the upper half of the gown, above the belt and down over the sleeves. The gown was exactly alike both front and back. Two whole years were spent in getting ready for the ceremony, and meantime Waterlily was preoccupied with a new baby sister, to the extent that she often forgot for long periods the great event awaiting her. The baby was named Mysterious Hand, and that was in compliment to her aunt Dream Woman, whose hands turned out unvarying beauty “too perfect to be human,” as people said. But Mysterious Hand would be the ceremonial name, not to be spoken carelessly. Waterlily’s descriptive term for the baby became her nickname, Smiling One. But at last the great day arrived. At dawn Gloku began to prepare special foods for the hunka candidate and fed her as the sun appeared. Then Blue Bird bathed her at the stream and washed and oiled her long hair until it shone. She braided it in two long braids in the usual style and tied on the new hair ties that were part of the special outfit. They were fragrant, for

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Dream Woman had made colorfully embroidered balls and stuffed them with perfume leaf, and these were attached to the ties. The new gown and the necklace and belt and bracelet were put on Waterlily, and some long, wide pendants of tiny shells were hung from her ears. Though they were so heavy that they pulled the small lobes down, elongating them, Waterlily knew they must be endured for beauty’s sake. Last of all, the new moccasins of solid red quillwork with matching leggings went on. A detail of the dreamed design on the gown was here skillfully repeated, making of the entire costume a charming harmony. And not only the tops but also the soles of the moccasins were covered with quillwork. This seemed extravagant and unnecessary, and Waterlily ventured to say so. “When I walk, I shall quickly break the quills and ruin the soles.” Her aunt Dream Woman replied, “But you will not walk.” Then she told the girl that child-be-loved moccasins for the hunka were always decorated so, and that one did not walk to the ceremonial tipi; one was carried. And now Waterlily was sitting stiffly attired in the rare outfit, so heavy with elegance that she hardly dared move, nor even so much as look sideways because of the ear ornaments that hung well below her collarbone on either side. She was all ready, there in the honorplace of the tipi, but as yet she was not wearing the face paint Rainbow had promised her. Leaping Fawn and Prairie Flower, her cousins, brought other girls in to admire her. Leaping Fawn thought it needful to explain, “You see, my cousin nearly died, but lived. That is why she is being honored. My uncle promised her this ceremony.” That was a perfectly acceptable explanation, for everyone knew that there was always a valid reason for parents to go to such expense—either because of a vow, as in Waterlily’s case, or because a child was sickly and there was fear of its death, or something of the sort. Now and then a child asked, but not often, “Mother, why is my brother a hunka and not I?” And then he was told, “Because we prayed for his recovery and promised to feast the people in his name if he should be spared to us, and he was.” A feast always accompanied the ceremony, and through it everyone in

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the community was related to the child being honored. The singling out of a child for the honor was accepted by the other children when they understood. They had always been taught it was shameful to be jealous of a brother or sister. “You are all one,” they were told. “Be happy for each other.” Children with normal endowments and sound health did not need any such compensating honor, and the majority lived and died content without its coming to them personally. Little Chief stayed around home today, as did everyone, for this was an occasion. He watched the ceremonial lodge being erected in the center of the circle and then ran home to wait for the ritual custom called the “pretended search” that was soon to start. Presently he shouted, “Here they come!” and ran telling everyone. But he knew what the searchers would do. He had seen them act out their role on similar occasions, for, like all boys, he often roamed throughout the circle and had watched many family ceremonies of several kinds, of which the hunka was one. He knew about the dramatics connected with bringing in the candidates, of the way the four men who were sent out as escorts for the candidate must pretend to lose their way. That was what they were doing now. They came out of the ceremonial tipi and walked rapidly away, only to stop short, argue, and change their direction. Three times they did this, and only the fourth time did they head straight for Black Eagle’s camp. And each time they stopped to confer and decide on another direction, they sang the traditional song that said, “Just where do they live? “Just where do they live?” though they knew all the time. The men arrived, entered the tipi, and lifted Waterlily gently onto the back of the one who was to carry her. Then the four men left the tipi, with Waterlily riding high and looking a little bewildered. The spectators who jammed the entrance made comments in praise of her costume, but she did not hear them. Three other children whose parents were also honoring them were borne in the same way by their particular escorts to the ceremonial tipi. There they were seated in the honor-place and

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an immense curtain was held in front of them while the officials gave them the hunka painting: tiny pencil lines of red vermilion down their cheeks to signify their new status. They were now children-beloved. All their lives they would have the right to mark their faces in this manner for important occasions, and people would say of them, “There goes a hunka!” and that would be an honor. It would mean “There goes one whose family loved him so much that they gave a great feast and many presents to the people in his name.” To have something given away in one’s name was the greatest compliment one could have. It was better than to receive. When the painting was finished and the curtain removed, the spectators saw the four children sitting in a row, each one holding a beautiful ear of blue corn mounted on a stick. This was to symbolize the hospitality to which they were in effect pledging themselves by accepting hunka status. They were now of the elect. It was required of the officiant of every ceremony that he first declare his qualifications. Accordingly, the man who had been engaged to administer the hunka rite began by saying, “I have myself known this rite. And have ever striven to live up to its demands; all who hear me know that this is so. I have gladly accepted the obligation of hospitality. No one in need has opened my tipi entrance curtain in vain,” and so he “presented his credentials.” Then he sang a very holy song while he waved the hunka wand over the heads of the candidates to invoke on them a blessing. The wand was wrapped solid with ornamental quillwork, and long strands of horsetail dyed in bright colors hung from it. At the end of the wand was a pipe. After the song, the man offered a drink of water to each child and then withdrew it as they were about to take it, saying, “As you go on from here, there may be those about you who are faint and weary. Of such you shall be mindful. And though you would hastily bring water to your lips to quench your own thirst, yet you shall first stop to look about you,” and only then he allowed them to drink. Next he held a piece of food over incense and then cut it in two. He threw one piece in the fire and laid the other on the

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candidate’s tongue, saying, “Whenever you sit down to eat, there may perhaps be someone waiting near, hungering for a swallow of your food. At such a time you shall remember what you have become here. And though you might be lifting meat to your mouth, yet you shall stop midway. You shall forbear to eat your food alone. Only half the morsel shall you eat, and with the other shall you show mercy.” This was all of the ritual; the feasts followed at the homes of the candidates. Rainbow gave some horses away in Waterlily’s name and provided much of the food, allowing the other relatives to share in giving it, for that was the way of the people—that all those families who belonged together help each other. Waterlily did not immediately understand what she had been committed to, but she would learn as time went on. She had been set apart as one of those who must make hospitality their first concern. Until she was a mature woman she would not be expected to carry on independently; till then, her mother and other relatives would carry on in her name. But the hunka obligation had been laid on her and it was a compelling thing. Its reward was high in prestige. The hairline stripes of red which she was thereafter privileged to wear were a sign of that. Immediately after the feast the elaborate costume was laid away and once more Waterlily wore ordinary dress, so there was nothing in her daily appearance to make her different from other children. Nothing further was said about her recent honor. In time she would realize fully that she was of the elect, but the honor was something she must appear to wear casually. Let others speak of it—selfboasting was out. Waterlily was beginning to take homely things and family doings with more appreciation. These she had always taken for granted, until this grand gesture of her stepfather brought them into focus. And so it was very much to her liking when one of her cousins, the youngest son of Black Eagle, came in one evening with the following report: “I came upon a stray buffalo with a broken leg today, so I shot him and left him in the hollow he rolled into and died.” News of meat was always a cause for rejoicing. For Black Eagle, this particular news was cause for pride and elation, for it was the boy’s first real killing. Immediately he invited any of

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the family members who wished to go, to move out to the scene with him and camp there for the butchering. In short, it was to be a family outing. At dawn, Rainbow and his sisters, First Woman and Dream Woman, and two or three cousins, all with their families, and of course the grandparents, Gloku and her old man, moved out there, leaving their homes standing in the camp circle and setting up temporary tipis near the ravine where the buffalo was. All the men were experienced butchers. They always cut up the animals they shot and brought the meat home in pieces. It was the Teton custom to skin the animal carefully, since hides were as important as the meat, and then to dissect the flesh according to the muscle structure. Each muscle was removed intact and called by name. The anatomical names of parts of animals were many. As each piece was removed and handed to the waiting women, they set at once to preparing it for drying. The old people took care of the bones, pounding them and then boiling them to derive their rich oils that took the place of butter, which they did not have. But it was not all work. There was feasting on the side. Nothing seemed so desirable as meat broiled while still fresh. It was the men who took charge here, broiling the whole sides, on a grand scale called “warpath style.” Over a huge fire of elm and oak they made a dome of green willows, and when the fire died down to a pile of hot coals, they flung the meat like an immense tent over the dome. It quite well covered the fire and caught all the rising heat. To a people subsisting principally on buffalo meat, the sound of sizzling juices dripping into the fire was delicious to hear; the occasional flare-up from the melting grease whetted all appetites. When the meat was cooked, it was lifted off by means of stout sticks sharpened to a point and was laid level on elm boughs spread on the ground. Then it was cut into juicy strips and passed around. And everyone had a wonderful time, the children making the most of it. Inveterate givers of food as the Tetons were, it was not enough that Black Eagle’s group of relatives were feasting after this windfall in their midst. No, they must share it. So they scanned the surrounding country for people passing in the distance and summoned them by waving a blanket or by calling

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to them, or some youth on a swift pony was dispatched to bring them in, to partake of the feast. It was wonderfully pleasant to be out there. When all the meat had been cared for properly, nobody wanted to return to the camp circle just yet, though it was in sight and there was constant going in and coming out by different ones, especially the boys on horseback, who were sent back with meat for those who did not come out. The fact that the tinpsila, wild prairie turnips, were at their best and grew plentifully on the hillsides offered a good excuse to stay; the women wanted to dig them for winter use. Meantime the men hunted desultorily. If one brought in a deer it was all to the good—more broiling of fresh meat. But they were too near the large circle to be hopeful of finding many. To Waterlily these were memorable days, for this was the time she began to like her mother best and enjoy being with her more than with the other family members. Before, she had turned as readily to her grandmother, aunts, and other relatives as to her mother—it was the way of related families—but now she was learning to appreciate her mother for the rare and sympathetic person she was. The two were beginning to have little heart-to-heart talks on serious matters that were on Waterlily’s mind, which her mother seemed to anticipate. There was that lovely afternoon when they went from the camp for a walk, just Blue Bird and her three children, Waterlily, Ohiya, and Smiling One, who was now past two winters. Beyond the knoll they sat down to rest, and there was nobody and nothing in sight, only country. Blue Bird looked on her children fondly and said, “Now I am truly happy—surrounded by my children.” And this she said because here was one of her rare opportunities to love them without limit, and to show them that she did. For in the larger family, where all adults acted parental toward all the children, they tried to be careful not to seem partial to any. Waterlily said eagerly, “We are happy, too, Mother, having you to ourselves. Mother, let’s play that game ‘hard times’ that we used to play with elder brother.” “Do you remember that, Waterlily?” Blue Bird was sur-

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prised. “You were very little, you know, when your brother Little Chief invented it for the three of us. It was fun, wasn’t it?” Then she added, looking far off, “Your brother is too big to play with us any more. He is out there somewhere, riding with the other boys. And that is right. These are the times when he must learn to ride. It is needful that all men ride well. Come now!” She pulled her wrap over her head and brought her three children under it. They snuggled up to her as she began a running commentary about their “awful plight,” and listened to the imagined misery with playful shudders. “Now…here we are…all alone…just us four. On a wide, deserted, strange prairie. And worst of all, we have so little food, and it is not likely we shall find any more…Oh dear, isn’t it terrible?” “Terrible! Terrible!” The two older children repeated in a chorus, being well into the spirit of it. “All we have is this tiny shelter…only a makeshift and not at all secure…Well, at least it protects us…if only the wind would not blow so hard!” “The wind! The wind!” They shuddered again. “Come, Ohiya,” the mother said, “a little closer in. Waterlily, pull the tent downward and hold it firm, there, back of you…Oh, for some anchoring pins! But there is no tree to cut from, alas. The wind grows worse, and colder. It could rip our shelter right off…Hold tight! Oh, whatever shall become of us!” The children loved it—it was such fun to be so wretched when it was only play. Ohiya added his bit of make-believe by crying, “Mother! Look at Smiling One, crawling out from under the tipi!” “No, no, Smiling One, come back here or you will freeze! All of you, keep close so we can warm one another.” They huddled still closer, in a tight knot. And then Ohiya began to moan in great misery. “What is it, my son?” “Mother, I am starving…soon I shall be dead. I have eaten nothing for three days and three nights…” His mother was appropriately distressed, as she hastened to offer him food. “Here, son, I have a very little pemmican…

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a mere handful. But at least hold a bit of it in your mouth…don’t swallow it…swallow the juice only…That will sustain you. It is what warriors sometimes have to do.” “Give, give! Quick!” And Ohiya gasped and rolled his eyes in agony, according to his notion of correct dying from starvation. His mother passed out a pinch of the food to each one and took some herself and they sat holding it in the mouth, swallowing the juice only. “I wonder, Ohiya, whether the storm has spent itself…it seems suddenly very quiet. Just peek out and see.” She said this to find out if the children were tired of the game. Far from it. At least Ohiya wanted to prolong it, for he stuck his head out and then jerked it back in with teeth chattering noisily. “Ouch! My ears are nearly frozen off, it is so cold…I think we must stay here some more.” Waterlily said, “Mother, in that case, tell us a story.” And so Blue Bird told them not one story but two and then a third. They were the same little stories long familiar but always welcome—about the stupid bear; the deceitful fox; the wily Iktomi, master of trickery; and about Meadowlark and her babies. In due time the children, who had wriggled about into more comfortable position against their mother, were sound asleep, their heads on her lap. She gazed on them tenderly as she wiped their flushed faces damp along the hairline, for it was actually a very warm day. “A lapful of babies—what more should a woman want?” She sat very still, her back against a rock, so they might have their rest, until someone called from beyond the hill telling them their evening meal was waiting. On the way back she carried the baby while the two older ones walked ahead. Suddenly Waterlily turned back to her and said, “Mother, this was such fun! Can we go walking with you again—often?” Waterlily went everywhere with her grandmother, Gloku, and her aunts and others, and always it was very pleasant, for they were all most agreeable. But now at last she had found her preference, her own mother, who could play games and talk about many things that were perplexing, clearing them away.

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She would stay close to her from now on. It was well she decided this, for very soon she would be needing more guidance through the extraordinary days of adolescence that were not too far off. And then it would be her own mother who would be most understanding and helpful.

from LIFE AMONG THE PIUTES Sara Winnemucca Hopkins

B orn near Humbolt Lake, Nevada, in 1844, Sara Winnemucca (Paiute) grew up to be a staunch advocate for her people and their rights. She traveled throughout the United States, lecturing about the cruel abuses faced by her tribe at the hands of unscrupulous Indian agents who stole and made personal profit from the government food and supplies meant for the tribe. In her autobiographical and historical work, Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims, Hopkins narrates the story of her family and the unjust treatment her people received after contact with and conquest by the United States government. Please note that the spelling “Piutes” in the title exemplifies the convention of the time. Today, the accepted form is “Paiute.” In the excerpt that follows, she tells of a grandfather who kept his word even in the face of betrayal. And she writes of the terror of being buried alive by her mother in her attempt to hide Sara from invading white men whom the tribe believed were cannibals. This belief had its basis in the fate of the Donner party who, while trapped by a snowstorm in a mountain pass, had indeed survived by eating their dead. The party’s Indian guides, Lewis and Salvadore, refused to do so. These heroic men, who had steadfastly remained with the doomed immigrants, fled for their lives, only after being told of plans to murder them for food. Nevertheless, they were eventually tracked down by members of the party. When they were found, exhausted and too weak to move, they were both shot in the head and consumed. It is believed that Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins died in October 1891 and that she is buried at Henry’s Lake, Montana.

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OH, WHAT A FRIGHT WE ALL GOT ONE MORNING TO HEAR SOME white people were coming. Every one ran as best they could. My poor mother was left with my little sister and me. Oh, I never can forget it. My poor mother was carrying my little sister on her back, and trying to make me run; but I was so frightened I could not move my feet, and while my poor mother was trying to get me along my aunt overtook us, and she said to my mother: “Let us bury our girls, or we shall all be killed and eaten up.” So they went to work and buried us, and told us if we heard any noise not to cry out, for if we did they would surely kill us and eat us. So our mothers buried me and my cousin, planted sage bushes over our faces to keep the sun from burning them, and there we were left all day. Oh, can any one imagine my feelings buried alive, thinking every minute that I was to be unburied and eaten up by the people that my grandfather loved so much? With my heart throbbing, and not daring to breathe, we lay there all day. It seemed that the night would never come. Thanks be to God! the night came at last. Oh, how I cried and said: “Oh, father, have you forgotten me? Are you never coming for me?” I cried so I thought my very heartstrings would break. At last we heard some whispering. We did not dare to whisper to each other, so we lay still. I could hear their footsteps coming nearer and nearer. I thought my heart was coming right out of my mouth. Then I heard my mother say, “’T is right here!” Oh, can any one in this world ever imagine what were my feelings when I was dug up by my poor mother and father? My cousin and I were once more happy in our mothers’ and fathers’ care, and we were taken to where all the rest were. I was once buried alive; but my second burial shall be for ever, where no father or mother will come and dig me up. It shall not be with throbbing heart that I shall listen for coming footsteps. I shall be in the sweet rest of peace,—I, the chieftain’s weary daughter. Well, while we were in the mountains hiding, the people that my grandfather called our white brothers came along to where our winter supplies were. They set everything we had left on fire. It was a fearful sight. It was all we had for the winter, and it was all burnt during that night. My father took some of his

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men during the night to try and save some of it, but they could not; it had burnt down before they got there. These were the last white men that came along that fall. My people talked fearfully that winter about those they called our white brothers. My people said they had something like awful thunder and lightning, and with that they killed everything that came in their way. This whole band of white people perished in the mountains, for it was too late to cross them. We could have saved them, only my people were afraid of them. We never knew who they were, or where they came from. So, poor things, they must have suffered fearfully, for they all starved there. The snow was too deep. Early in the following spring, my father told all his people to go to the mountains, for there would be a great emigration that summer. He told them he had had a wonderful dream, and wanted to tell them all about it. He said, “Within ten days come together at the sink of Carson, and I will tell you my dream.” The sub-chiefs went everywhere to tell their people what my father had told them to say; and when the time came we all went to the sink of Carson. Just about noon, while we were on the way, a great many of our men came to meet us, all on their horses. Oh, what a beautiful song they sang for my father as they came near us! We passed them, and they followed us, and as we came near to the encampment, every man, woman, and child were out looking for us. They had a place all ready for us. Oh, how happy everybody was! One could hear laughter everywhere, and songs were sung by happy women and children. My father stood up and told his people to be merry and happy for five days. It is a rule among our people always to have five days to settle anything. My father told them to dance at night, and that the men should hunt rabbits and fish, and some were to have games of football, or any kind of sport or playthings they wished, and the women could do the same, as they had nothing else to do. My people were so happy during the five days,—the women ran races, and the men ran races on foot and on horses.

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My father got up very early one morning, and told his people the time had come,—that we could no longer be happy as of old, as the white people we called our brothers had brought a great trouble and sorrow among us already. He went on and said,— “These white people must be a great nation, as they have houses that move. It is wonderful to see them move along. I fear we will suffer greatly by their coming to our country; they come for no good to us, although my father said they were our brothers, but they do not seem to think we are like them. What do you all think about it? Maybe I am wrong. My dear children, there is something telling me that I am not wrong, because I am sure they have minds like us, and think as we do; and I know that they were doing wrong when they set fire to our winter supplies. They surely knew it was our food.” And this was the first wrong done to us by our white brothers. Now comes the end of our merrymaking. Then my father told his people his fearful dream, as he called it. He said,— “I dreamt this same thing three nights,—the very same. I saw the greatest emigration that has yet been through our country. I looked North and South and East and West, and saw nothing but dust, and I heard a great weeping. I saw women crying, and I also saw my men shot down by the white people. They were killing my people with something that made a great noise like thunder and lightning, and I saw the blood streaming from the mouths of my men that lay all around me. I saw it as if it was real. Oh, my dear children! You may all think it is only a dream,—nevertheless, I feel that it will come to pass. And to avoid bloodshed, we must all go to the mountains during the summer, or till my father comes back from California. He will then tell us what to do. Let us keep away from the emigrant roads and stay in the mountains all summer. There are to be a great many pine-nuts this summer, and we can lay up great supplies for the coming winter, and if the emigrants don’t come too early, we can take a run down and fish for a month, and lay up dried fish. I know we can dry a great many in a month, and young men can go into the valleys on hunting excursions, and

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kill as many rabbits as they can. In that way we can live in the mountains all summer and all winter too.” So ended my father’s dream. During that day one could see old women getting together talking over what they had heard my father say. They said,— “It is true what our great chief has said, for it was shown to him by a higher power. It is not a dream. Oh, it surely will come to pass. We shall no longer be a happy people, as we now are; we shall no longer go here and there as of old; we shall no longer build our big fires as a signal to our friends, for we shall always be afraid of being seen by those bad people.” “Surely they don’t eat people?” “Yes, they do eat people, because they ate each other up in the mountains last winter.” This was the talk among the old women during the day. “Oh, how grieved we are! Oh, where will it end?” That evening one of our doctors called for a council, and all the men gathered together in the council-tent to hear what their medicine man had to say, for we all believe our doctor is greater than any human being living. We do not call him a medicine man because he gives medicine to the sick, as your doctors do. Our medicine man cures the sick by the laying on of hands, and we have doctresses as well as doctors. We believe that our doctors can communicate with holy spirits from heaven. We call heaven the Spirit Land. Well, when all the men get together, of course there must be smoking the first thing. After the pipe has passed round five times to the right, it stops, and then he tells them to sing five songs. He is the leader in the song-singing. He sings heavenly songs, and he says he is singing with the angels. It is hard to describe these songs. They are all different, and he says the angels sing them to him. Our doctors never sing war-songs, except at a war-dance, as they never go themselves on the warpath. While they were singing the last song, he said,— “Now I am going into a trance. While I am in the trance you must smoke just as you did before; not a word must be spoken while I am in the trance.”

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About fifteen minutes after the smoking was over, he began to make a noise as if he was crying a great way off. The noise came nearer and nearer, until he breathed, and after he came to, he kept on crying. And then he prophesied, and told the people that my father’s dream was true in one sense of the word,—that is, “Our people will not all die at the hands of our white brothers. They will kill a great many with their guns, but they will bring among us a fearful disease that will cause us to die by hundreds.” We all wept, for we believed this word came from heaven. So ended our feast, and every family went to its own home in the pine-nut mountains, and remained there till the pine-nuts were ripe. They ripen about the last of June. Late in that fall, there came news that my grandfather was on his way home. Then my father took a great many of his men and went to meet his father, and there came back a runner, saying, that all our people must come together. It was said that my grandfather was bringing bad news. All our people came to receive their chieftain; all the old and young men and their wives went to meet him. One evening there came a man, saying that all the women who had little children should go to a high mountain. They wanted them to go because they brought white men’s guns, and they made such a fearful noise, it might even kill some of the little children. My grandfather had lost one of his men while he was away. So all the women that had little children went. My mother was among the rest; and every time the guns were heard by us, the children would scream. I thought, for one that my heart would surely break. So some of the women went down from the mountain and told them not to shoot any more, or their children would die with fright. When our mothers brought us down to our homes the nearer we came to the camp, the more I cried,— “Oh, mother, mother, don’t take us there!” I fought my mother,—I bit her. Then my father came, and took me in his arms and carried me to the camp. I put my head in his bosom, and would not look up for a long time. I heard my grandfather say,—

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“So the young lady is ashamed because her sweetheart has come to see her. Come, dearest, that won’t do after I have had such a hard time to come to see my sweetheart, that she should be ashamed to look at me.” Then he called my two brothers to him, and said to them, “Are you glad to see me?” And my brothers both told him that they were glad to see him. Then my grandfather said to them,— “See that young lady; she does not love her sweetheart any more, does she? Well, I shall not live if she does not come and tell me she loves me. I shall take that gun, and I shall kill myself.” That made me worse than ever, and I screamed and cried so hard that my mother had to take me away. So they kept weeping for the little one three or four days. I did not make up with my grandfather for a long time. He sat day after day, and night after night, telling his people about his white brothers. He told them that the whites were really their brothers, that they were very kind to everybody, especially to children; that they were always ready to give something to children. He told them what beautiful things their white brothers had,—what beautiful clothes they wore, and about the big houses that go on the mighty ocean, and travel faster than any horse in the world. His people asked him how big they were. “Well, as big as that hill you see there, and as high as the mountain over us.” “Oh, that is not possible,—it would sink, surely.” “It is every word truth, and that is nothing to what I am going to tell you. Our white brothers are a mighty nation, and have more wonderful things than that. They have a gun that can shoot a ball bigger than my head, that can go as far off as that mountain you see over there.” The mountain he spoke of at that time was about twenty miles across from where we were. People opened their eyes when my grandfather told of the many battles they had with the Mexicans, and about their killing so many of the Mexicans, and taking their big city away from them, and how mighty they were. These wonderful things were talked about all winter long. The funniest thing was that he would sing some of the soldier’s

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roll-calls, and the air to the Star-spangled Banner, which everybody learned during the winter. He then showed us a more wonderful thing than all the others that he had brought. It was a paper, which he said could talk to him. He took it out and he would talk to it, and talk with it. He said, “This can talk to all our white brothers, and our white sisters, and their children. Our white brothers are beautiful, and our white sisters are beautiful, and their children are beautiful! He also said the paper can travel like the wind, and it can go and talk with their fathers and brothers and sisters, and come back to tell what they are doing, and whether they are well or sick.” After my grandfather told us this, our doctors and doctresses said,— “If they can do this wonderful thing, they are not truly human, but pure spirits. None but heavenly spirits can do such wonderful things. We can communicate with the spirits, yet we cannot do wonderful things like them. Oh, our great chieftain, we are afraid your white brothers will yet make your people’s hearts bleed. You see if they don’t; for we can see it. Their blood is all around us, and the dead are lying all about us, and we cannot escape it. It will come. Then you will say our doctors and doctresses did know. Dance, sing, play, it will do no good; we cannot drive it away. They have already done the mischief, while you were away.” But this did not go far with my grandfather. He kept talking to his people about the good white people, and told them all to get ready to go with him to California the following spring. Very late that fall, my grandfather and my father and a great many more went down to the Humboldt River to fish. They brought back a great many fish, which we were very glad to get; for none of our people had been down to fish the whole summer. When they came back, they brought us more news. They said there were some white people living at the Humboldt sink. They were the first ones my father had seen face to face. He said they were not like “humans.” They were more like owls

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than any thing else. They had hair on their faces, and had white eyes, and looked beautiful.* I tell you we children had to be very good, indeed, during the winter; for we were told that if we were not good they would come and eat us up. We remained there all winter; the next spring the emigrants came as usual, and my father and grandfather and uncles, and many more went down on the Humboldt River on fishing excursions. While they were thus fishing, their white brothers came upon them and fired on them, and killed one of my uncles, and wounded another. Nine more were wounded, and five died afterwards. My other uncle got well again, and is living yet. Oh, that was a fearful thing, indeed! After all these things had happened, my grandfather still stood up for his white brothers. Our people had council after council, to get my grandfather to give his consent that they should go and kill those white men who were at the sink of Humboldt. No; they could do nothing of the kind while he lived. He told his people that his word was more to him than his son’s life, or any one else’s life either. “Dear children,” he said, “think of your own words to me;—you promised. You want me to say to you, Go and kill those that are at the sink of Humboldt. After your promise, how dare you to ask me to let your hearts be stained with the blood of those who are innocent of the deed that has been done to us by others? Is not my dear beloved son laid alongside of your dead, and you say I stand up for their lives. Yes, it is very hard, indeed; but, nevertheless, I know and you know that those men who live at the sink are not the ones that killed our men.” While my grandfather was talking, he wept, and men, women, and children, were all weeping. One could hardly hear him talking. After he was through talking, came the saddest part. The widow of my uncle who was killed, and my mother and father

*

When asked to explain this, she said, “Oh, their eyes were blue, and they had long beards.”

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all had long hair. They cut off their hair, and also cut long gashes in their arms and legs, and they were all bleeding as if they would die with the loss of blood. This continued for several days, for this is the way we mourn for our dead. When the woman’s husband dies, she is first to cut off her hair, and then she braids it and puts it across his breast; then his mother and sisters, his father and brothers and all his kinsfolk cut their hair. The widow is to remain unmarried until her hair is the same length as before, and her face is not to be washed all that time, and she is to use no kind of paint, nor to make any merriment with other women until the day is set for her to do so by her father-in-law, or if she has no father-in-law, by her motherin-law, and then she is at liberty to go where she pleases. The widower is at liberty when his wife dies; but he mourns for her in the same way, by cutting his hair off. It was late that fall when my grandfather prevailed with his people to go with him to California. It was this time that my mother accompanied him. Everything had been got ready to start on our journey. My dear father was to be left behind. How my poor mother begged to stay with her husband! But my grandfather told her that she could come back in the spring to see her husband; so we started for California, leaving my poor papa behind. All my kinsfolk went with us but one aunt and her children. The first night found us camped at the sink of Carson, and the second night we camped on Carson River. The third day, as we were travelling along the river, some of our men who were ahead, came back and said there were some of our white brothers’ houses ahead of us. So my grandfather told us all to stop where we were while he went to see them. He was not gone long, and when he came back he brought some hard bread which they gave him. He told us that was their food, and he gave us all some to taste. That was the first I ever tasted. Then my grandfather once more told his people that his paper talked for him, and he said,— “Just as long as I live and have that paper which my white brothers’ great chieftain has given me, I shall stand by them, come what will.” He held the paper up towards heaven and kissed it, as if it was really a person. “Oh, if I should lose

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this,” he said, “we shall all be lost. So, children, get your horses ready, and we will go on, and we will camp with them tonight, or by them, for I have a sweetheart along who is dying for fear of my white brothers.” He meant me; for I was always crying and hiding under somebody’s robes, for we had no blankets then. Well, we went on; but we did not camp with them, because my poor mother and brothers and sisters told my grandfather that I was sick with crying for fright, and for him not to camp too close to them. The women were speaking two words for themselves and one for me, for they were just as afraid as I was. I had seen my brother Natchez crying when the men came back, and said there were white men ahead of us. So my grandfather did as my mother wished him to do, and we went on by them; but I did not know it, as I had my head covered while we were passing their camp. I was riding behind my older brother, and we went on and camped quite a long way from them that night. So we travelled on to California, but did not see any more of our white brothers till we got to the head of Carson River, about fifteen miles above where great Carson City now stands. “Now give me the baby.” It was my baby-sister that grandpa took from my mother, and I peeped from under my mother’s fur, and I saw some one take my little sister. Then I cried out,— “Oh, my sister! Don’t let them take her away.” And once more my poor grandfather told his people that his white brothers and sisters were very kind to children. I stopped crying, and looked at them again. Then I saw them give my brother and sister something white. My mother asked her father what it was, and he said it was Pe-har-be, which means sugar. Just then one of the women came to my mother with some in her hand, and grandpa said:— “Take it, my child.” Then I held out my hand without looking. That was the first gift I ever got from a white person, which made my heart very glad. When they went away, my grandfather called me to him, and said I must not be afraid of the white people, for they are very good. I told him that they looked so very bad I could not help it.

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We travelled with them at that time two days, and the third day we all camped together where some white people were living in large white houses. My grandpa went to one of the houses, and when he came back he said his white brothers wanted him to come and get some beef and hard bread. So he took four men with him to get it, and they gave him four boxes of hard bread and a whole side of beef, and the next morning we got our horses ready to go on again. There was some kind of a fight,—that is, the captain of the train was whipping negroes who were driving his team. That made my poor grandfather feel very badly. He went to the captain, and told him he would not travel with him. He came back and said to his people that he would not travel with his white brothers any farther. We travelled two days without seeing any more of my grandfather’s white brothers. At last we came to a very large encampment of white people, and they ran out of their wagons, or wood-houses, as we called them, and gathered round us. I was riding behind my brother. I was so afraid, I told him to put his robe over me, but he did not do so. I scratched him and bit him on his back, and then my poor grandfather rode up to the tents where they were, and he was asked to stay there all night with them. After grandpa had talked awhile, he said to his people that he would camp with his brothers. So he did. Oh, what nice things we all got from my grandpa’s white brothers! Our men got red shirts, and our women got calico for dresses. Oh, what a pretty dress my sister got! I did not get anything, because I hid all the time. I was hiding under some robes. No one knew where I was. After all the white people were gone, I heard my poor mother cry out:— “Oh, where is my little girl? Oh, father, can it be that the white people have carried her away? Oh, father, go and find her,—go, go, and find her!” And I also heard my brothers and sister cry. Yet I said nothing, because they had not called me to get some of the pretty things. When they began to cry, I began crawling out, and then my grandfather scolded me, and told me that his brothers loved good children, but not bad ones like me. How I did cry, and wished that I had staid at home with my father! I went to sleep crying. I did not forget what had happened. There was a house near

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where we camped. My grandfather went down to the house with some of his men, and pretty soon we saw them coming back. They were carrying large boxes, and we were all looking at them. My mother said there were two white men coming with them. “Oh, mother, what shall I do? Hide me!” I just danced round like a wild one, which I was. I was behind my mother. When they were coming nearer, I heard my grandpa say,— “Make a place for them to sit down.” Just then, I peeped round my mother to see them. I gave one scream, and said,— “Oh, mother, the owls!” I only saw their big white eyes, and I thought their faces were all hair. My mother said,— “I wish you would send your brothers away, for my child will die.” I imagined I could see their big white eyes all night long. They were the first ones I had ever seen in my life.

NI-BO-WI-SE-GWE Ignatia Broker

Ithen lifeNight Flying Woman, Ignatia Broker (Ojibway) lovingly recounts of her great-great-grandmother, Ni-bo-wi-se-gwe. This is a story rich in Ojibway traditions and lifeways that moves from a life of precontact peace and contentment to the disruption and displacement caused by white settlers. In Broker’s own words, it was a time of “great chaos and change.” The following passage tells the story of a family’s refusal to capitulate to government demands that they be placed on a reservation, their subsequent flight from white encroachment, and the sorrow and desolation of leaving playmates and loved ones behind, perhaps never to be seen again. Ignatia Broker was an Ojibway elder and storyteller. Over the course of her life she worked to educate the public about Native American people. She was involved with the Upper Midwest American Indian Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and founded the Minnesota Indian Historical Society. She died in 1987. NI-BO-WI-SE-GWE IS A GREAT-GREAT-GRANDMOTHER TO MANY people of the Wolf and Fish clans, and in our family we speak of her with pride. She was a great and unusual woman, and there are many stories told of her life and ways. As it is told, many of the events and circumstances pertaining to Ni-bo-wi-se-gwe were unusual, even from the time before her birth. Her father, Me-ow-ga-bo (Outstanding), and mother, Wa-wi-e-cumig-go-gwe (Round Earth), were young, healthy,

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and strong. Usually such Ojibway couples have children early in marriage, and often they have at least five. But it was not so with this young couple. They had been three years together, a long time, and they had not had a child. The people of their village began to wonder and feel a sadness for the young couple. After the third year, Ni-bo-wi-se-gwe was born, and she was the only child. The time of her birth was after the blueberry gathering and before the wild-rice harvesting. The day began bright and sunny, and it was so when Wa-wi-e-cu-mig-go-gwe felt the first pangs of birth. Just before the sun was high in the sky, at the exact time of birth, the sun and moon crossed paths and there was a pitch darkness. In this darkness the first wail of the child was heard, and because of this her parents knew that the tiny girl would be different. But they felt it was good because she was born of love and joy. So out of the darkness, called the eclipse, was born a person who became strong and gave strength, who became wise and lent this wisdom to her people, who became part of the generation of chaos and change. Me-ow-ga-bo and Wa-wi-e-cu-mig-go-gwe were happy, for it was a time of plenty. The velvet of the forest shone as soft and bright as the love they had for Tiny Girl. They had waited a long time for their child. Now that they were fulfilled, they would fill the life of their child with all that was necessary to honor her and thus the people and the Gitchi Manito, the Great Spirit. Three weeks after birth, according to the custom of the people, came the time when the naming must be planned. The spirit of every person must be honored with a name, a song, and an animal. Tiny Girl must be given a name, and she must be given in honor to her grandparents. Me-ow-ga-bo and Wa-wi-e-cu-mig-go-gwe consulted with Grandfather and Grandmother and decided that A-wa-sa-si (Bullhead) should be the namer, for A-wa-sa-si was old and wise and good. A-wa-sa-si was the storyteller, and when she placed her hands on the heads of the children, their crying and fears were stilled. The family lit a pipe and offered it to the Gitchi Manito. Then they sent Tiny Girl’s cap with a bag of

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kin-nik-a-nik inside to old A-wa-sa-si. If A-wa-sa-si accepted the cap and smoked the kin-nik-a-nik it meant that she would, indeed, be the namer. A-wa-sa-si took the cap and smiled, for it pleased her to be the namer. First she went into the forest to choose the medicine for the animal bag that she would make and give to the baby. Then she visited the child and returned to the forest to meditate and to choose an animal and a song. She visited Tiny Girl again. A day was set for the naming feast, and the family sent kin-nik-a-nik to all the people in the village to let them know that they were to come. The family began to prepare the feast for the naming ceremony. There would be much food, for it was after the ricing time when food was stored and buried. Acorns were roasted. Hazel nuts were ground and mixed with dried berries to make small cakes. Ma-nomin, the precious wild rice, was popped and mixed with si-s-sa-bagwa-d, the maple sugar. There would be fish, deer, and rabbit for all, but the heads of the bear and buffalo were reserved for the Old Ones of the Mi-de-wi-wi-n. The ceremony and feast were held in the beautiful autumn season. Although the days were cooling, they were yet sunny. The green of the forest was turning to orange, gold, and brown; this orange, gold, and brown fell and cushioned the earth and reflected the glory of the trees. All the people of the village arrived bringing gifts. They came to hear the honor of the name given to the child of Me-ow-ga-bo and Wa-wi-e-cu-mig-go-gwe, for by honoring a child the people also honored the Gitchi Manito. A-wa-sa-si had chosen the name Ni-bowi-se-gwe, which means Night Flying Woman, because Tiny Girl had been born during the darkness of the day. A-wa-sa-si said that the shadows when the sun left the earth and the shadows when the day began would be the best time for her. But because Ni-bo-wi-segwe was such a long name for tiny tongues, the child was soon called Oona, for her first laughing sound. Oona’s first months were like those of all Ojibway children. The Ojibway know that a learning process begins at birth and that a baby’s first learning experience is watching. So, as soon as possible, Oona was laced into a cradleboard and placed where

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she could see her family at work and at play. She watched Grandmother lacing muk-kuk-ko-ons-sug, the strong birch-bark containers, or winding wi-go-b, the tough string made from the bark of trees. People talked to her about things they saw and did. Oona was happy. She would look into the shadows in the lodge and smile, and the people would remember the time she came. Being strapped in the cradleboard was also the beginning of her experience in restraint. She began to learn this in the customary way. At certain times when she cried, a brushy stick was scraped across her face and her lips were pinched. These actions would be repeated if the family needed to make a silent journey; then Oona would know she must not cry. It was a matter of survival, especially if there were enemies in the forest. During the first year of Oona’s life the winter white piled high around the lodges, but she did not know this for inside the lodge all was warm and snug. The fire in the middle of the lodge leaped and shone and made patterns that made Oona laugh and coo. Many times old A-wa-sa-si would be in the lodge with Grandmother, for these two watched over Oona. Mother would go about her work, and often she would stop and whisper softly to Oona. Sometimes she made tiny clothes when she sat watching the meat roast over the fire. Father would come in blowing cold air and smiling, his strength and presence making everyone feel that all was well. When the winter white turned to water, Oona, still in the cradle, went to the maple-sugar bush with the family. In the summer Oona tasted berries fresh from the bush. She walked her first steps in the fall at ricing time. For five years Oona’s cycle of life was the same. Summer camp to ricing camp to winter village to sugar bush to planting time to summer camp. These years were filled with love and laughter and this cycle was the cycle of life of our people, the Ojibway. It was the beautiful spring season. The days now were warm and clear and the sun shone through the new green of the trees. The stately birch, which had looked ghostly all through the winter, was sprinkled with the green. Once again it offered its

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yearly gift of bark to the forest people. Pale flowers, the violet and the crocus, lifted their faces and lent their fragile scent to the forest air, blending with the village smell of the wood fires and burning cedar leaves. The waters in the brooks whispered back and forth with the trees. Squirrels came out from their winter homes and they too chattered back and forth, holding their tails up high. This was a sign foretelling warmth for the coming days. Other Forest Brothers were standing, lean but shining, ready for another cycle of birth and life. Everything was so new, fresh, and good. There was much excitement in the Ojibway village and the children felt it. It made them fearful. A do-daim, or clansman, from the east was visiting and the people held a feast in his honor. After the feast, in the evening, the people met in council to hear the news of the dodaim. He told of a strange people whose skins were as pale as the winter white and whose eyes were blue or green or gray. “Yes,” said A-bo-wi-ghi-shi-g (Warm Sky), the village leader, “I have seen these strangers.” “I also,” said others. “These strangers,” said the do-daim, “are again asking the Ojibway to mark a paper. All the leaders of the A-sa-bi-ig-go-na-ya, the Nettle Fiber People, are to do this. The Ojibway to the east have made the mark, and now they are on the big water where they must stay forever. The strangers promised never to enter their forests but they came anyway to trade for the coats of the Animal Brothers. I have a muk-kuk they gave me, and I will leave it to you. It sits right on the fire and does not crack. It is called iron kettle, and the strangers have promised many of these when the papers are marked.” “Have you studied these strangers well? Are they good people, or are they those who will be enemies?” asked A-bo-wi-ghi-shi-g. “Some are kind. Others speak good. Others smile when they think they are deceiving,” replied the do-daim. “Many of the Ojibway have stayed with these people, but soon our people had great coughs and there were bumps on their skins, and they were given water that made them forget.” “I have seen these strangers before. They have come into the

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forests many times,” said Grandfather. “I know that they desire the furs of our animal friends and wish to give us the strange things.” “Yes,” said the do-daim, “these strangers are asking the Ojibway to trap the Animal Brothers. They give a stick that roars and that can kill faster than an arrow.” “Also,” said Grandfather, “I have seen the men with the long dress. They speak many words about Gitchi Manito, the Great Spirit. And I have seen the men with the fire sticks. They have followed the Chi-si-bi (Mississippi) to its source.” “But now,” said the do-daim, “these strangers are many. They intend to stay, for they are building lodges and planting food. Far to the east, the forests of the Eastern Keepers have been ripped from the face of the earth and the doors of the longhouses have been sealed. “These strangers fight among themselves. They fought and killed each other for the land of the Mo-wi-ga-n (Mohegan) and now again they are fighting in the land of the Che-ro-ki (Cherokee). “Our kinsmen, the O-ma-no-ma-ni-g (Menominee), the Wild Rice People, are crowded at the edge of the big water, and the O-da-wa (Ottawa) have crossed the big water. The O-bo-da-wa-da-mi-g (Potawatomi) have gone south, many of them. The Mi-s-gwa-ghi (Fox) are shivering with cold and hunger now. They are but a handful in number. “Down by the Chi-si-bi at the place where the small gulls fly, the forests have become smaller. Strangers are there in great number. All day long they cut the trees and send them down the river. Although these strangers have said they will stay to the rising sun, already they are looking this way, for soon there will be no forest where they are now. “Yes, my brothers,” said the do-daim, “these strangers are looking this way.” When the do-daim left, the council fires burned. The people discussed what he had said. A-bo-wi-ghi-shi-g, the leader, said, “We cannot escape for long the meeting with these strange people. Our kinsmen on the Chi-oni-ga-mig (Lake Superior) have marked the paper and now they must forever stay at O-bi-mi-wi-i-to-n (Grand

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Portage), the carrying place. Also, I have been to where the Chi-sibi and the A-bwa-na-g (Minnesota) waters meet. I have seen the strangers’ lodges there. The lodges are many and the men called soldiers are many. They will forever be there, for they plant the corn.” Oona’s grandfather said, “I also have been to the land where the small gulls live, where the strangers push the forest poles into the big river. I have seen their lodges and their planting. Soon all will be planted. But I have also been to the rainy country. The men who desire the furs are few there now. They use the waters only to pass on to the big north country, and this is seldom. The forests are thick there, and beneath the trees the earth is soft and boggy so the planting would not be good, although there are many dry places deep within the bogs. I am thinking that I shall take my family there and maybe escape these strangers for a while.” “Yes,” said A-bo-wi-ghi-shi-g, “we shall do that. Those who wish to go with you will lay a stick in a pile. I shall take the others to the strangers at the Lake of Nettles if this must be so. But we all must move soon in order to plant the seed in our new places and find the ricing beds and the sugar bush.” The people met and talked for three days on the hill outside the village. They spoke of the many good things that had always been. Of grandfathers and grandmothers who were the dust of the forests. Of those who would be left in the journeying places. The women listened and there was a wailing sound to their voices when they talked together. On the eve of the third day, the men smoked the pipe of peace in council and passed around the sacred kin-nik-a-nik. The voices of the people became stilled and a quiet purpose was reflected in their faces. The whole forest became silent. Little Oona awoke one bright new day to the busy stirrings of the village. She had felt the excitement of the past few days, and she was fearful. “Bis-in-d-an, listen,” Oona whispered to herself, heeding one of her first lessons. “Listen, and you will hear the patterns of life. Are they the same, or is there a change in the sounds?” So Oona listened. “Something different is hap-

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pening today,” Oona whispered again to herself. Quickly she rolled out from under the rabbitskin robe, dressed, and went out of the lodge. She saw Grandfather and Grandmother making bundles of food and clothing. Oona was only five years old but she was already trained in many of the ways of a good Ojibway. She knew almost all that she could not do and all that she must learn to do. She went to her grandparents and stood before them with eyes cast down, knowing she could not speak the many questions she wished to ask, for they who are wise must speak first. Always, the first words spoken should be from the older people. Oona wanted to look up at her grandfather’s face, a face that was lined with many years. She had always sought comfort from her grandfather, who had a special look just for her. He would smile with his eyes and she felt well and cared for. “Oona, my child,” said Grandfather, “I hope you have slept well. I know by the roundness of your eyes that you are wondering what is doing today.” Grandfather paused, sat down, and stretched out his hand to Oona. “Take my hand, and I will tell you what your eyes ask. “Remember this day, my child,” Grandfather continued. “For all of your small life, this village, this place, has been your home, but now we must move toward the setting sun. We have been happy here and we have lived here a long, long time. A very long time even before you were born. At the council it was decided that we shall seek a new place. We move because there is another people who are fast coming into the forest lands. Their ways are different and we wish to be free of them for as long as we can. “Take the things you wish to take—your corn doll and rubbing rock toy. Put them in a bundle. There is room.” Grandfather smiled and Oona felt comforted. She accepted the thoughts of change. With a feeling of excitement and anticipation, she went and stood before her mother. “Mother,” said Oona, “who will be leaving with us?” “There will be eight families,” replied Mother. “Four of your uncles and their families and three families of the do-daim of the Muk-kwa, and of course old A-wa-sa-si. Grandfather, since he is the oldest, will be the leader.”

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“When shall we be leaving, Mother?” “We shall leave in a while, for we are all packed and the men have gone to get the canoes from the place of hiding. We must leave before the others go to the Lake of Nettles to be counted. That way the strange people will not know that we are not doing what they demand.” Mother looked down at her fragile daughter, she who was much smaller than the other children of her age. She brushed Oona’s black shining hair and lifted up the small oval face with the huge dark eyes. “It is sad to be leaving, my Oona,” said Mother, “but in one’s life there are many times when one must leave a place of happiness for the unknown. I have done this many times, but the beauty of a life remains forever in the heart. You must remember the beauty that was here. Go, my daughter, and say the words of friendship to those who were your playmates.” Oona made up her little bundle. Then she went to find her cousin, E-quay (Lady). They joined hands and circled the camp, smiling the smile of friendship to those they would not see again. They then went to the river to wait for the men and the canoes.

WASICHUS IN THE HILLS Black Elk as told to John G. Neihardt

JLakota/Sioux, ohn G. Neihardt first met Black Elk, a holy man of the Oglala in August 1930 on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The book that came out of that meeting describes Black Elk’s calling and life as a holy man. It is also the story of the struggles of the Lakota people against the threat of white encroachment and annihilation at the hands of the United States cavalry—a struggle that culminated in the tragic massacre of the peaceful people of Chief Big Foot’s camp at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890. When the Black Hills, sacred to the Lakota and guaranteed by the Treaty of 1868 to remain in the possession of the tribe, were invaded by General George Armstrong Custer and his men, Black Elk was eleven years old. With the treaty broken, the influx of white settlers and gold miners went unchecked. Racial tensions and competition for land increased. This selection from Black Elk Speaks tells of some of the trials faced by Black Elk and his people during this turbulent time. Today battles for land and tribal sovereignty take place in courtrooms as the Lakota people continue their struggle for autonomy and justice. IT WAS THE NEXT SUMMER, WHEN I WAS 11 YEARS OLD (1874), THAT the first sign of a new trouble came to us. Our band had been camping on Split-Toe Creek in the Black Hills, and from there we moved to Spring Creek, then to Rapid Creek where it comes

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out into the prairie. That evening, just before sunset, a big thunder cloud came up from the west, and just before the wind struck, there were clouds of split-tail swallows flying all around above us. It was like a part of my vision, and it made me feel queer. The boys tried to hit the swallows with stones and it hurt me to see them doing this, but I could not tell them. I got a stone and acted as though I were going to throw, but I did not. The swallows seemed holy. Nobody hit one, and when I thought about this I knew that of course they could not. The next day some of the people were building a sweat tepee for a medicine man by the name of Chips, who was going to perform a ceremony and had to be purified first. They say he was the first man who made a sacred ornament for our great chief, Crazy Horse. While they were heating the stones for the sweat tepee, some boys asked me to go with them to shoot squirrels. We went out, and when I was about to shoot at one, I felt very uneasy all at once. So I sat down, feeling queer, and wondered about it. While I sat there I heard a voice that said: “Go at once! Go home!” I told the boys we must go home at once, and we all hurried. When we got back, everybody was excited, breaking camp, catching the ponies and loading the drags; and I heard that while Chips was in the sweat tepee a voice had told him that the band must flee at once because something was going to happen there. It was nearly sundown when we started, and we fled all that night on the back trail toward Spring Creek, then down that creek to the south fork of the Good River. I rode most of the night in a pony drag because I got too sleepy to stay on a horse. We camped at Good River in the morning, but we stayed only long enough to eat. Then we fled again, upstream, all day long until we reached the mouth of Horse Creek. We were going to stay there, but scouts came to us and said that many soldiers had come into the Black Hills; and that was what Chips saw while he was in the sweat tepee. So we hurried on in the night towards Smoky Earth River (the White), and when we got there, I woke up and it was day-break. We camped a while to eat, and then went up the Smoky Earth, two camps, to Robinson, for we were afraid of the soldiers up there.

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Afterward I learned that it was Pahuska* who had led his soldiers into the Black Hills that summer to see what he could find. He had no right to go in there, because all that country was ours. Also the Wasichus had made a treaty with Red Cloud (1868) that said it would be ours as long as grass should grow and water flow. Later I learned too that Pahuska had found there much of the yellow metal that makes the Wasichus crazy; and that is what made the bad trouble, just as it did before, when the hundred were rubbed out. Our people knew there was yellow metal in little chunks up there; but they did not bother with it, because it was not good for anything. We stayed all winter at the Soldiers’ Town, and all the while the bad trouble was coming fast; for in the fall we heard that some Wasichus had come from the Missouri River to dig in the Black Hills for the yellow metal, because Pahuska had told about it with a voice that went everywhere. Later he got rubbed out for doing that. The people talked about this all winter. Crazy Horse was in the Powder River country and Sitting Bull was somewhere north of the Hills. Our people at the Soldiers’ Town thought we ought to get together and do something. Red Cloud’s people said that the soldiers had gone in there to keep the diggers out, but we, who were only visiting, did not believe it. We called Red Cloud’s people “HangsAround-The-Fort,” and our people said they were standing up for the Wasichus, and if we did not do something we should lose the Black Hills. In the spring when I was twelve years old (1875), more soldiers with many wagons came up from the Soldiers’ Town at the mouth of the Laramie River§ and went into the Hills. There was much talk all summer, and in the Moon of Making Fat (June) there was a sun dance there at the Soldiers’ Town to give the people strength, but not many took part; maybe because everybody was so excited talking about the Black Hills. I re-

* Long §

Hair, General Custer. Colonel Dodge with 400 men and 75 wagons from Fort Laramie escorted a geological expedition into the Hills that spring and remained until October.

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member two men who danced together. One had lost a leg in the Battle of the Hundred Slain and one had lost an eye in the Attacking of the Wagons, so they had only three eyes and three legs between them to dance with. We boys went down to the creek while they were sun dancing and got some elm leaves that we chewed up and threw on the dancers while they were all dressed up and trying to look their best. We even did this to some of the older people, and nobody got angry, because everybody was supposed to be in a good humor and to show their endurance in every kind of way; so they had to stand teasing too. I will tell about a big sun dance later when we come to it. In the Moon When the Calves Grow Hair (September) there was a big council with the Wasichus on the Smoky Earth River at the mouth of White Clay Creek. I can remember the council, but I did not understand much of it then. Many of the Lakotas were there, also Shyelas and Blue Clouds*; but Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull stayed away. In the middle of the circle there was a shade made of canvas. Under this the councilors sat and talked, and all around them there was a crowd of people on foot and horseback. They talked and talked for days, but it was just like wind blowing in the end. I asked my father what they were talking about in there, and he told me that the Grandfather at Washington wanted to lease the Black Hills so that the Wasichus could dig yellow metal, and that the chief of the soldiers had said if we did not do this, the Black Hills would be just like melting snow held in our hands, because the Wasichus would take that country anyway. It made me sad to hear this. It was such a good place to play and the people were always happy in that country. Also I thought of my vision, and of how the spirits took me there to the center of the world. After the council we heard that creeks of Wasichus were flowing into the Hills and becoming rivers, and that they were already making towns up there. It looked like bad trouble coming, so our band broke camp and started out to join Crazy Horse on Powder River. We camped on Horsehead Creek, then on

*

Cheyennes and Arapahoes.

Patricia Riley / 95 the War Bonnet after we crossed the old Wasichu’s road* that made the trouble that time when the hundred were rubbed out. Grass was growing on it. Then we camped at Sage Creek, then on the Beaver, then on Driftwood Creek, and came again to the Plain of Pine Trees at the edge of the Hills. The nights were sharp now, but the days were clear and still; and while we were camping there I went up into the Hills alone and sat a long while under a tree. I thought maybe my vision would come back and tell me how I could save that country for my people, but I could not see anything clear. This made me sad, but something happened a few days later that made me feel good. We had gone over to Taking-The-Crow-Horses Creek, where we found many bison and made plenty of meat and tanned many hides for winter. In our band there was a man by the name of Fat, who was always talking about how fast his horse could run. One day while we were camping there I told Fat my pony could run faster than his could, and he laughed at me and said that only crows and coyotes would think my pony was any good. I asked him what he would give me if my pony could beat his, and he said he would give me some black medicine (coffee). So we ran, and I got the black medicine. All the while we were running I thought about the white wing of the wind that the Second Grandfather of my vision gave me; and maybe that power went into my pony’s legs. On Kills-Himself Creek we made more meat and hides and were ready to join Crazy Horse’s camp on the Powder. There were some Hang-Around-The-Fort people with us, and when they saw that we were going to join Crazy Horse, they left us and started back to the Soldiers’ Town. They were afraid there might be trouble, and they knew Crazy Horse would fight, so they wanted to be safe with the Wasichus. We did not like them very much. We had no advisers, because we were just a little band, and when we were moving, the boys could ride anywhere. One day while we were heading for Powder River I was riding ahead

*

The Bozeman Trail.

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with Steals Horses, another boy my age, and we saw some footprints of somebody going somewhere. We followed the footprints and there was a knoll beside a creek where a Lakota was lying. We got off and looked at him, and he was dead. His name was Root-of-theTail, and he was going over to Tongue River to see his relatives when he died. He was very old and ready to die, so he just lay down and died right there before he saw his relatives again. Afterwhile we came to the village on Powder River and went into camp at the downstream end. I was anxious to see my cousin, Crazy Horse, again, for now that it began to look like bad trouble coming, everybody talked about him more than ever and he seemed greater than before. Also I was getting older. Of course I had seen him now and then ever since I could remember, and had heard stories of the brave things he did. I remember the story of how he and his brother were out alone on horseback, and a big band of Crows attacked them, so that they had to run. And while they were riding hard, with all those Crows after them, Crazy Horse heard his brother call out; and when he looked back, his brother’s horse was down and the Crows were almost on him. And they told how Crazy Horse charged back right into the Crows and fought them back with only a bow and arrows, then took his brother up behind him and got away. It was his sacred power that made the Crows afraid of him when he charged. And the people told stories of when he was a boy and used to be around with the older Hump all the time. Hump was not young any more at the time, and he was a very great warrior, maybe the greatest we ever had until then. They say people used to wonder at the boy and the old man always being together; but I think Hump knew Crazy Horse would be a great man and wanted to teach him everything. Crazy Horse’s father was my father’s cousin, and there were no chiefs in our family before Crazy Horse; but there were holy men; and he became a chief because of the power he got in a vision when he was a boy. When I was a man, my father told me something about that vision. Of course he did not know all of it; but he said that Crazy Horse dreamed and went into the

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world where there is nothing but the spirits of all things. That is the real world that is behind this one, and everything we see here is something like a shadow from that world. He was on his horse in that world, and the horse and himself on it and the trees and the grass and the stones and everything were made of spirit, and nothing was hard, and everything seemed to float. His horse was standing still there, and yet it danced around like a horse made only of shadow, and that is how he got his name, which does not mean that his horse was crazy or wild, but that in his vision it danced around in that queer way. It was this vision that gave him his great power, for when he went into a fight, he had only to think of that world to be in it again, so that he could go through anything and not be hurt. Until he was murdered by the Wasichus at the Soldiers’ Town on White River, he was wounded only twice, once by accident and both times by some one of his own people when he was not expecting trouble and was not thinking; never by an enemy. He was fifteen years old when he was wounded by accident; and the other time was when he was a young man and another man was jealous of him because the man’s wife liked Crazy Horse. They used to say too that he carried a sacred stone with him, like one he had seen in some vision, and that when he was in danger, the stone always got very heavy and protected him somehow. That, they used to say, was the reason no horse he ever rode lasted very long. I do not know about this; maybe people only thought it; but it is a fact that he never kept one horse long. They wore out. I think it was only the power of his great vision that made him great. Now and then he would notice me and speak to me before this; and sometimes he would have the crier call me into his tepee to eat with him. Then he would say things to tease me, but I would not say anything back, because I think I was a little afraid of him. I was not afraid that he would hurt me; I was just afraid. Everybody felt that way about him, for he was a queer man and would go about the village without noticing people or saying anything. In his own tepee he would joke, and when he was on the warpath with a small party, he would joke to make his warriors feel good. But around the village he hardly ever

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noticed anybody, except little children. All the Lakotas like to dance and sing; but he never joined a dance, and they say nobody ever heard him sing. But everybody liked him, and they would do anything he wanted or go anywhere he said. He was a small man among the Lakotas and he was slender and had a thin face and his eyes looked through things and he always seemed to be thinking hard about something. He never wanted to have many things for himself, and did not have many ponies like a chief. They say that when game was scarce and the people were hungry, he would not eat at all. He was a queer man. Maybe he was always part way into that world of his vision. He was a very great man, and I think if the Wasichus had not murdered him down there, maybe we should still have the Black Hills and be happy. They could not have killed him in battle. They had to lie to him and murder him. And he was only about thirty years old when he died. One day after we had camped there on Powder River, I went upstream to see him again, but his tepee was empty and he was gone somewhere, maybe with a war-party against the Crows, for we were close to them now and had to look out for them all the time. Later I did see him. He put his arm across my shoulder and took me into his tepee and we sat down together. I do not remember what he said, but I know he did not say much, and he did not tease me. Maybe he was thinking about the trouble coming. We did not stay together there very long, but scattered out and camped in different places so that the people and the ponies would all have plenty. Crazy Horse kept his village on Powder River with about a hundred tepees, and our band made camp on the Tongue. We built a corral of poles for the horses at night and herded them all day, because the Crows were great horse-thieves and we had to be careful. The women chopped and stripped cottonwood trees during the day and gave the bark to the horses at night. The horses liked it and it made them sleek and fat. Beside the mouth of the corral there was a tepee for the horse guard, and one night Crow Nose was staying there and his wife was with him. He had a hole in the tepee so that he could look through. Afterwhile he got very sleepy, so he woke his wife

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and told her to get up and watch while he had a little rest. By and by she saw something dark moving slowly on the snow out there, so she woke her husband and whispered, “Old man, you’d better get up, for I think I see something.” So Crow Nose got up and peeped out and saw a man moving around the corral in the starlight looking for the best horse. Crow Nose told his wife to keep her eye at the hole and let him know when the man was coming out with a horse, and he lay down at the opening of the tepee with the muzzle of his gun sticking out of the flap. By and by they could hear the bar lifted at the mouth of the corral. When his wife touched him, Crow Nose thrust his head outside and saw the man just getting on a horse to ride away. He was black against the sky, so Crow Nose shot him, and the shot woke the whole camp so that many came running with guns and coup sticks. Yellow Shirt was the first to count coup* on the dead Crow, but many followed. A man who has killed an enemy must not touch him, for he has already had the honor of killing. He must let another count coup. When I got there to see, a pile of coup sticks was lying beside the Crow and the women had cut him up with axes and scattered him around. It was horrible. Then the people built a fire right there beside the Crow and we had a kill dance. Men, women, and children danced right in the middle of the night, and they sang songs about Crow Nose who had killed and Yellow Shirt who had counted the first coup. Then it was daylight, and the crier told us we would move camp to the place where Root-of-the-Tail died. Crow Nose dressed up for war, painted his face black and rode the horse the enemy had tried to steal. When the men paint their faces black, the women all rejoice and make the tremolo, because it means their men are going to kill enemies. When we camped again, one of Red Cloud’s loafers who had started back for the Soldiers’ Town because they were afraid there might be trouble, came in and said the Crows had killed all his party but himself, while they were sleeping, and he had escaped because he was out scouting.

*

The act of striking an enemy, dead or alive, with a stick conferred distinction, the first coup naturally counting most.

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During the winter, runners came from the Wasichus and told us we must come into the Soldiers’ Town right away or there would be bad trouble. But it was foolish to say that, because it was very cold and many of our people and ponies would have died in the snow. Also, we were in our own country and were doing no harm. Late in the Moon of the Dark Red Calves (February) there was a big thaw, and our little band started for the Soldiers’ Town, but it was very cold again before we got there. Crazy Horse stayed with about a hundred tepees on Powder, and in the middle of the Moon of the Snowblind (March) something bad happened there. It was just daybreak. There was a blizzard and it was very cold. The people were sleeping. Suddenly there were many shots and horses galloping through the village. It was the cavalry of the Wasichus, and they were yelling and shooting and riding their horses against the tepees. All the people rushed out and ran, because they were not awake yet and they were frightened. The soldiers killed as many women and children and men as they could while the people were running toward a bluff. Then they set fire to some of the tepees and knocked the others down. But when the people were on the side of the bluff, Crazy Horse said something, and all the warriors began singing the death song and charged back upon the soldiers; and the soldiers ran, driving many of the people’s ponies ahead of them. Crazy Horse followed them all that day with a band of warriors, and that night he took all the stolen ponies away from them, and some of their own horses, and brought them all back to the village.* These people were in their own country and were doing no harm. They only wanted to be let alone. We did not hear of this until quite awhile afterward; but at the Soldiers’ Town we heard enough to make us paint our faces black.

*

Colonel Reynolds with six companies of cavalry attacked Crazy Horse’s village as stated in the early morning of March 16, 1876.

AT LAST I KILL A BUFFALO Luther Standing Bear

L uther Standing Bear, whose Lakota/Sioux name was Ota K’te, Plenty Kill, was born in the 1860s. In his informal memoir, My Indian Boyhood, he affectionately recounts his family life and upbringing within traditional Lakota society. Luther Standing Bear was only eight years of age when his father allowed him to participate in his first buffalo hunt. For him, as for all Lakota boys, the first buffalo hunt served as a kind of test that would demonstrate his courage and ability. For the young Ota K’te, this event would do far more than challenge his bravery and skill, it would try his character as well. Other books by Luther Standing Bear are My People the Sioux, Land of the Spotted Eagle, and Stories of the Sioux. AT LAST THE DAY CAME WHEN MY FATHER ALLOWED ME TO GO ON a buffalo hunt with him. And what a proud boy I was! Ever since I could remember my father had been teaching me the things that I should know and preparing me to be a good hunter. I had learned to make bows and to string them; and to make arrows and tip them with feathers. I knew how to ride my pony no matter how fast he would go, and I felt that I was brave and did not fear danger. All these things I had learned for just this day when father would allow me to go with him on a buffalo hunt. It was the event for which every Sioux boy eagerly waited. To ride side by side with the best hunters of the tribe, to hear the terrible noise of the great herds as they ran, and then

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to help to bring home the kill was the most thrilling day of any Indian boy’s life. The only other event which could equal it would be the day I went for the first time on the warpath to meet the enemy and protect my tribe. On the following early morning we were to start, so the evening was spent in preparation. Although the tipis were full of activity, there was no noise nor confusion outside. Always the evening before a buffalo hunt and when every one was usually in his tipi, an old man went around the circle of tipis calling, “I-ni-la,” “I-ni-la,” not loudly, but so every one could hear. The old man was saying, “Keep quiet,” “Keep quiet.” We all knew that the scouts had come in and reported buffalo near and that we must all keep the camp in stillness. It was not necessary for the old man to go into each tipi and explain to the men that tomorrow there would be a big hunt, as the buffalo were coming. He did not order the men to prepare their weapons and neither did he order the mothers to keep children from crying. The one word, “I-ni-la,” was sufficient to bring quiet to the whole camp. That night there would be no calling or shouting from tipi to tipi and no child would cry aloud. Even the horses and dogs obeyed the command for quiet, and all night not a horse neighed and not a dog barked. The very presence of quiet was everywhere. Such is the orderliness of a Sioux camp that men, women, children, and animals seem to have a common understanding and sympathy. It is no mystery but natural that the Indian and his animals understand each other very well both with words and without words. There are words, however, that the Indian uses that are understood by both his horses and dogs. When on a hunt, if one of the warriors speaks the word “A-a-ah” rather quickly and sharply, every man, horse, and dog will stop instantly and listen. Not a move will be made by an animal until the men move or speak further. As long as the hunters listen, the animals will listen also. The night preceding a buffalo hunt was always an exciting night, even though it was quiet in camp. There would be much talk in the tipis around the fires. There would be sharpening of arrows and of knives. New bow-strings would be made and quivers would be filled with arrows. It was in the fall of the year and the evenings were cool as

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father and I sat by the fire and talked over the hunt. I was only eight years of age, and I know that father did not expect me to get a buffalo at all, but only to try perhaps for a small calf should I be able to get close enough to one. Nevertheless, I was greatly excited as I sat and watched father working in his easy, firm way. I was wearing my buffalo-skin robe, the hair next to my body. Mother had made me a rawhide belt and this, wrapped around my waist, held my blanket on when I threw it off my shoulders. In the early morning I would wear it, for it would be cold. When it came time to shoot, I should not want my blanket but the belt would hold it in place. You can picture me, I think, as I sat in the glow of the camp-fire, my little brown body bare to the waist watching, and listening intently to my father. My hair hung down my back and I wore moccasins and breech-cloth of buckskin. To my belt was fastened a rawhide holster for my knife, for when I was eight years of age we had plenty of knives. I was proud to own a knife, and this night I remember I kept it on all night. Neither did I lay aside my bow, but went to sleep with it in my hand, thinking, I suppose, to be all the nearer ready in the morning when the start was made. Father sharpened my steel points for me and also sharpened my knife. The whetstone was a long stone which was kept in a buckskin bag, and sometimes this stone went all over the camp; every tipi did not have one, so we shared this commodity with one another. I had as I remember about ten arrows, so when father was through sharpening them I put them in my rawhide quiver. I had a rawhide quirt, too, which I would wear fastened to my waist. As father worked, he knew I was watching him closely and listening whenever he spoke. By the time all preparations had been made, he had told me just how I was to act when I started out in the morning with the hunters. We went to bed, my father hoping that tomorrow would be successful for him so that he could bring home some nice meat for the family and a hide for my mother to tan. I went to bed, but could not go to sleep at once, so filled was I with the wonderment and excitement of it all. The next day was to be a test for me. I was to prove to my father whether he was or was

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not justified in his pride in me. What would be the result of my training? Would I be brave if I faced danger and would father be proud of me? Though I did not know it that night I was to be tried for the strength of my manhood and my honesty in this hunt. Something happened that day which I remember above all things. It was a test of my real character and I am proud to say that I did not find myself weak, but made a decision that has been all these years a gratification to me. The next morning the hunters were catching their horses about daybreak. I arose with my father and went out and caught my pony. I wanted to do whatever he did and show him that he did not have to tell me what to do. We brought our animals to the tipi and got our bows and arrows and mounted. From over the village came the hunters. Most of them were leading their running horses. These running horses were anxious for the hunt and came prancing, their ears straight up and their tails waving in the air. We were joined with perhaps a hundred or more riders, some of whom carried bows and arrows and some armed with guns. The buffalo were reported to be about five or six miles away as we should count distance now. At that time we did not measure distance in miles. One camping distance was about ten miles, and these buffalo were said to be about one half camping distance away. Some of the horses were to be left at a stopping-place just before the herd was reached. These horses were pack-animals which were taken along to carry extra blankets or weapons. They were trained to remain there until the hunters came for them. Though they were neither hobbled nor tied, they stood still during the shooting and noise of the chase. My pony was a black one and a good runner. I felt very important as I rode along with the hunters and my father, the chief. I kept as close to him as I could. Two men had been chosen to scout or to lead the party. These two men were in a sense policemen whose work it was to keep order. They carried large sticks of ash wood, something like a policeman’s billy, though longer. They rode ahead of the party while the rest of us kept in a group close together. The leaders went ahead until they sighted the herd of grazing buffalo. Then

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they stopped and waited for the rest of us to ride up. We all rode slowly toward the herd, which on sight of us had come together, although they had been scattered here and there over the plain. When they saw us, they all ran close together as if at the command of a leader. We continued riding slowly toward the herd until one of the leaders shouted, “Ho-ka-he!” which means, “Ready, Go!” At that command every man started for the herd. I had been listening, too, and the minute the hunters started, I started also. Away I went, my little pony putting all he had into the race. It was not long before I lost sight of father, but I kept going just the same. I threw my blanket back and the chill of the autumn morning struck my body, but I did not mind. On I went. It was wonderful to race over the ground with all these horsemen about me. There was no shouting, no noise of any kind except the pounding of the horses’ feet. The herd was now running and had raised a cloud of dust. I felt no fear until we had entered this cloud of dust and I could see nothing about me—only hear the sound of feet. Where was father? Where was I going? On I rode through the cloud, for I knew I must keep going. Then all at once I realized that I was in the midst of the buffalo, their dark bodies rushing all about me and their great heads moving up and down to the sound of their hoofs beating upon the earth. Then it was that fear overcame me and I leaned close down upon my little pony’s body and clutched him tightly. I can never tell you how I felt toward my pony at that moment. All thought of shooting had left my mind. I was seized by blank fear. In a moment or so, however, my senses became clearer, and I could distinguish other sounds beside the clatter of feet. I could hear a shot now and then and I could see the buffalo beginning to break up into small bunches. I could not see father nor any of my companions yet, but my fear was vanishing and I was safe. I let my pony run. The buffalo looked too large for me to tackle, anyway, so I just kept going. The buffalo became more and more scattered. Pretty soon I saw a young calf that looked about my size. I remembered now what father had told me the night before as we sat about the fire. Those instructions were important for me now to follow.

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I was still back of the calf, being unable to get alongside of him. I was anxious to get a shot, yet afraid to try, as I was still very nervous. While my pony was making all speed to come alongside, I chanced a shot and to my surprise my arrow landed. My second arrow glanced along the back of the animal and sped on between the horns, making only a slight wound. My third arrow hit a spot that made the running beast slow up in his gait. I shot a fourth arrow, and though it, too, landed it was not a fatal wound. It seemed to me that it was taking a lot of shots, and I was not proud of my marksmanship. I was glad, however, to see the animal going slower and I knew that one more shot would make me a hunter. My horse seemed to know his own importance. His two ears stood straight forward and it was not necessary for me to urge him to get closer to the buffalo. I was soon by the side of the buffalo and one more shot brought the chase to a close. I jumped from my pony, and as I stood by my fallen game, I looked all around wishing that the world could see. But I was alone. In my determination to stay by until I had won my buffalo, I had not noticed that I was far from every one else. No admiring friends were about, and as far as I could see I was on the plain alone. The herd of buffalo had completely disappeared. And as for father, much as I wished for him, he was out of sight and I had no idea where he was. I stood and looked at the animal on the ground. I was happy. Every one must know that I, Ota K’te, had killed a buffalo. But it looked as if no one knew where I was, so no one was coming my way. I must then take something from this animal to show that I had killed it. I took all the arrows one by one from the body. As I took them out, it occurred to me that I had used five arrows. If I had been a skillful hunter, one arrow would have been sufficient, but I had used five. Here it was that temptation came to me. Why could I not take out two of the arrows and throw them away? No one would know, and then I should be more greatly admired and praised as a hunter. As it was, I knew that I should be praised by father and mother, but I wanted more. And so I was tempted to lie. I was planning this as I took out my skinning knife that father had sharpened for me the night before. I skinned one side of the animal, but when it came to turning it over, I was too small. I

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was wondering what to do when I heard my father’s voice calling, “To-ki-i-la-la-hu-wo,” “Where are you?” I quickly jumped on my pony and rode to the top of a little hill near by. Father saw me and came to me at once. He was so pleased to see me and glad to know that I was safe. I knew that I could never lie to my father. He was too fond of me and I too proud of him. He had always told me to tell the truth. He wanted me to be an honest man, so I resolved then to tell the truth even if it took from me a little glory. He rode up to me with a glad expression on his face, expecting me to go back with him to his kill. As he came up, I said as calmly as I could, “Father, I have killed a buffalo.” His smile changed to surprise and he asked me where my buffalo was. I pointed to it and we rode over to where it lay, partly skinned. Father set to work to skin it for me. I had watched him do this many times and knew perfectly well how to do it myself, but I could not turn the animal over. There was a way to turn the head of the animal so that the body would be balanced on the back while being skinned. Father did this for me, while I helped all I could. When the hide was off, father put it on the pony’s back with the hair side next to the pony. On this he arranged the meat so it would balance. Then he covered the meat carefully with the rest of the hide, so no dust would reach it while we traveled home. I rode home on top of the load. I showed my father the arrows that I had used and just where the animal had been hit. He was very pleased and praised me over and over again. I felt more glad than ever that I had told the truth and I have never regretted it. I am more proud now that I told the truth than I am of killing the buffalo. We then rode to where my father had killed a buffalo. There we stopped and prepared it for taking home. It was late afternoon when we got back to camp. No king ever rode in state who was more proud than I that day as I came into the village sitting high up on my load of buffalo meat. Mother had now two hunters in the family and I knew how she was going to make over me. It is not customary for Indian men to brag about their exploits and I had been taught that bragging was not nice. So I was very quiet, although I was bursting with pride. Always when arriving home I would run out to play, for I loved to be

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with the other boys, but this day I lingered about close to the tipi so I could hear the nice things that were said about me. It was soon all over camp that Ota K’te had killed a buffalo. My father was so proud that he gave away a fine horse. He called an old man to our tipi to cry out the news to the rest of the people in camp. The old man stood at the door of our tipi and sang a song of praise to my father. The horse had been led up and I stood holding it by a rope. The old man who was doing the singing called the other old man who was to receive the horse as a present. He accepted the horse by coming up to me, holding out his hands to me, and saying, “Ha-ye,” which means “Thank you.” The old man went away very grateful for the horse. That ended my first and last buffalo hunt. It lives only in my memory, for the days of the buffalo are over.

SCHOOLDAYS

Traditionally, Native American children were educated by their families and communities through a combination of hands-on instruction, gentle admonishment, and the passing on of tribal ethics and values through storytelling and ceremonial participation. Children were taught the responsibilities of kinship and respect for self and others so that one day they would become competent and contributing members of the tribal society. It was an educational experience marked by patience and consideration for each child’s unique abilities. Euroamerican educational policies regarding Native Americans began to take shape in the 1870s when Congress allocated monies for the instruction of tribal children. Assimilation and detribalization were the goals of this educational program and the task of overseeing instruction went to various religious institutions and organizations. Though these schools were initially established as day schools, officials soon decided that a boarding school environment away from family and tribal community would be a more effective means of achieving their desired goals. By the close of the nineteenth century, mandatory boarding school was firmly in place and became a grim fact of life for many Native American children. When these children were taken from their homes, often at the age of six, the militarystyle methods employed by missionary and government boarding schools had devastating effects on them. Separated from their families, punished for speaking their native languages, ill fed and brutally treated, these children often emerged emotionally and physically scarred. Personal courage, memories of family and home, and love for one another allowed these young Native Americans to endure and resist the efforts of those who meant to destroy their tribal identities.

from THE MIDDLE FIVE: INDIAN SCHOOLBOYS OF THE OMAHA TRIBE Francis La Flesche

Iboys n his autobiographical recollection, The Middle Five: Indian Schoolof the Omaha Tribe, Francis La Flesche offers a thorough and incisive account of student life in a Presbyterian mission school in northeastern Nebraska around the time of the Civil War. The students, whose ages ranged from four to seventeen, frequently banded together into groups that offered friendship, mutual comfort, and understanding as they tried to negotiate between the old world they had been torn from and the alien new world in which they found themselves. The Middle Five was the name of the group created by Francis La Flesche and four other schoolboys. In these selections, La Flesche tells several moving incidents illustrating the compassion, bravery, and friendship of a group of boys during one of the most difficult periods of their lives. Francis La Flesche (Omaha) was born in 1857. He devoted his life to the study of his people’s traditions and was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by the University of Nebraska in 1926 for his outstanding scholarly achievements. He died in 1932. JOE IT WAS RECESS. THE LAUGHER AND SHOUTS OF THE BOYS, AS THEY chased each other and wrestled, mingled with the song of the wren and other birds that inhabited the woods surrounding the school. Not less merry or boisterous were the laughter and calls

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of the girls, although their territory for play was limited and fenced in, to keep them from too free a communication with the rougher sex. Study and work were forgotten, and every boy and girl romped in the sunshine, and the atmosphere around seemed to be alive with happiness. Suddenly the boys began to gather curiously around two objects upon the ground. The girls, seeing this unusual stir, came running to their fence, climbed up as far as they dared, and asked the nearest boys what it was that attracted so large a crowd. It was a pitiful scene,—there, sitting on the green grass, was a crippled old woman of about seventy or eighty years, speaking in the kindest and gentlest of tones, with inflections of the voice hard to describe, but which brought to one’s mind the twittering of a mother bird to its young, and passing her crooked fingers and wrinkled hands over the brown back of a miserable, naked, little boy who was digging his chubby fists in his eyes to squeeze away the tears that flowed incessantly. “Don’t cry! my little grandson,” she was saying; “don’t cry! These White-chests are kind; they will clothe and feed you. I can no longer take care of you, so I must give you to them. See these boys, what nice caps and coats and pants they have! You will have these things, too, and you will have plenty to eat. The White-chests will be good to you; I will come and see you very often. Don’t cry!” But the boy cried all the harder, twisting his fists into his eyes, and the old woman continued her caressing twittering. The bell rang, and there was a rush for the school-room. When the hard breathing, coughing, and shuffling into position at the desks had ceased, the door was gently pushed open, and the old woman entered, tenderly urging the unwilling little brown body forward into the room, still weeping. Addressing Gray-beard, who was watching the scene with a queer smile on his lips, the old woman said: “I have brought my little boy to give him to the White-chests to raise and to educate. On account of my age and feebleness, I am no longer able to care for him. I give him to you, and I beg that he be kindly treated. That is all I ask.” Without waiting for an answer, the poor creature, with tears

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streaming down her furrowed cheeks, limped out of the room, making a cheerless clatter with her heavy stick as she moved away. The little boy, recovering from his bewilderment, turned to see if his grandmother was still near by, and, finding that she had gone, gave a piteous wail, and fell to the floor, sobbing violently. Who was this wretched little boy? He was his mother’s son, that’s all. He had no father, that is, none to caress and fondle him as other boys had. A man had presented the name of the boy to the Agent to be entered on the annuity rolls, only to that selfish extent recognizing the lad as his son. The mother died while the child still needed her tender care, and the little one was left all alone in this great world that plays with the fortunes of men and nations. The place of death was in a dreary little tent, the rags of which flapped and fluttered in the force of the merciless winds, as though in sympathy with the melancholy situation. No loving husband or father was there to prepare the body for its last resting-place, and to give the helpless babe the nourishment for which it cried. Not even a relative was there; the dead woman had none among the people; she belonged to another tribe. As the mother lay an unburied corpse, and her child wailing, a figure bent with age was plodding by. It was an old woman; slowly she put her heavy stick forward, then took a step, as though measuring every movement. When she came near the tent, she stopped, for the distressing wail had pierced her ears. She raised her trembling hand to her brow, looked up to the tent, then to the surroundings. The wailing went on, and the decrepit old woman hastened toward the tent as fast as she was able to go, and entered. For a moment she stood still, contemplating the scene before her, then from the fountains of her tender heart arose tears, impelled not by the sympathy that naturally springs from the love of friend or kindred, but by that nobler and higher feeling which lifts one toward God,—the sympathy for human kind. Thus it was that this kind-hearted old woman took the homeless little child to her tent and cared for him. The two were inseparable until the grandmother, as she was called by the boy, felt that she was fast approaching the time when she would be

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summoned to join her fathers in the spirit-land; so, to provide for the child’s future, she had brought him to the school. The naming of a new pupil was usually an occasion for much merriment, but this time there was no enthusiasm. The school seemed to be in sympathy with the grandmother who went away weeping. Instead of raising their hands, as was their wont, to suggest names, they sought to hide their feeling by poring over their books. “Come,” said Gray-beard, “we must have a name for this youngster. Be quick and suggest one.” There was no response. Finally a big boy, who was busy over his lessons, said without lifting his head, “Call him Joseph.” So Gray-beard entered that name on the school Register. Joe, as he was called by the boys, grew rapidly, but the helplessness of infancy clung to him. Because he could not fight, he became the butt of every trick a school-boy could devise, and there was no one who would do battle for him. If a big boy looked hard at him he would howl, and if one of his size rushed at him threateningly, he would shrink with fear. He was incapable of creating any mischief, yet he was continually stumbling into scrapes. One sultry afternoon as I was sitting in the shade of the walnuttree in front of the school, busy making a sling for Bob out of an old shoe, Joe came up to us, and dropped on his hands and knees. With the greatest interest he watched me cut the leather into a diamond shape; after a while he ventured to ask, “What yer makin’?” “Wait and see,” I answered, and went on working. When I had finished the sling-strap or pocket, I cut from the lappets of my buckskin moccasin two strings, making a noose at the end of one, and then fastened both strings to the sling-strap. Although I did not say anything about it, I had determined to make one for Joe as soon as I had shown Bob how to use the sling. He tried to find out from Bob what I was making; but that little chap would not speak to him. When the sling was finished, I told Bob to gather some rusty nails and pebbles. He was off with a jump, and returned with a good supply in an amazingly short time. Joe still sat watching, with eyes and mouth wide open. I put a nail in the sling-strap,

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and, to show Bob how to use the sling, swung it around three or four times, then threw out my arm with force, letting one end of the string slip, and the nail sped on its way through the air, singing. Bob clapped his hands with delight. A crow was flying lazily over head, croaking as he went. I sent a stone whizzing up to him; it barely missed his head, and he turned a complete somersault in the air, to our great amusement. “I’m goin’ to make one too!” said Joe, suddenly rising and hunting around for materials. I paid no attention to him, but went on teaching Bob how to throw stones with the sling, little thinking that we were drifting toward an incident which gave Joe much pain temporarily and left an impression on my immature mind unfavorable to the White-chests which lasted many, many years. “Mine’s done!” exclaimed Joe, holding up a sling he had made out of rotten rags. “Don’t use it,” I made haste to say, “and I’ll make you a good one.” He paid no heed to my words, but went on trying to balance stones in the old piece of rag. The stones dropped before he could swing the sling and throw them. Bob kept me busy throwing stones for him, for he was afraid of hitting the boys who were on the hillside near by playing tag, or of sending a pebble over the fence, where the girls were singing and chatting over some of their games. “Look now, look!” cried Joe. I turned to see what he was doing. He had succeeded in balancing a clod of earth nearly as large as his head in the rag sling, and was about to swing it. Just at this moment Gray-beard came out of the carpenter’s shop and, shading his eyes with a newspaper, he called loudly to one of the boys who was playing tag, “Ulysses! Ulysses!” He inflated his lungs to call for the third time, and with greater volume of voice. Joe had swung the clod of earth around for the second time, and it was half way up for the third round when the string broke; released from its holdings, the clod flew into the air, revolving, and dropping loose particles as it went. I held my breath as I watched it, for I saw just where it was going to strike.

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In throwing a stone at some object, I used to imagine that by keeping a steady eye on the stone and bending my body in the direction I desired it to go, I could make the missile reach the place aimed at. In this instance, although I did not throw the clod, I unconsciously bent my body sidewise, keeping my eyes steadily on the lump of earth to draw it away from the spot for which it was making. The two other boys watched with frightened faces. Gray-beard with head thrown back, lips parted, and chest expanded, called, “Uly—!” when the diminutive planet, which I was trying to guide by my force of will, struck him in the chest, and burst in a thousand bits. For a moment there was coughing and sputtering; then Gray-beard drew out his hand-kerchief, dusted his beard, and his white shirt front. He looked around to see where the missile that struck him came from. I wished that we three could sink into the earth, or else turn into nothing, as Gray-beard’s eyes rested upon us. “Come here!” he demanded with a vigorous gesture. Like so many guilty curs we walked up to him. “Which one of you did it?” he cried, grasping me by the collar and shaking me until my teeth chattered. Joe cringed and cried; it was a confession. I was about to say, “he didn’t mean to do it;” when the infuriated man turned, went into the shop, and in a moment came back with a piece of board. “Hold out your hand!” he said, addressing the shrinking boy. Joe timidly held out his left hand, keeping his eyes all the while on the uplifted board, which came down with force, but not on the little hand that had been withdrawn to escape the blow. Gray-beard sprang at the boy, caught his hand, and attempted to strike it; but the boy pulled away and the board fell with a vicious thud on the wrist of the man, who now turned white with rage. Catching a firm grip on the hand of the boy, Gray-beard dealt blow after blow on the visibly swelling hand. The man seemed to lose all self-control, gritting his teeth and breathing heavily, while the child writhed with pain, turned blue, and lost his breath. It was a horrible sight. The scene in the school-room when the naked little boy was first brought there by the old woman

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rose before me; I heard the words of the grandmother as she gave the boy to Gray-beard, “I beg that he be kindly treated; that is all I ask!” And she had told the child that the White-chests would be kind to him. Poor Joe, I did what I never would have done if a boy of his own size had thrashed him, I took him by the hand and tried to comfort him, and cared for his bruises. As for Gray-beard I did not care in the least about the violent shaking he had given me; but the vengeful way in which he fell upon that innocent boy created in my heart a hatred that was hard to conquer. The day was spoiled for me; I partly blamed myself for it, though my plans had been to make the two little boys happy, but misery came instead. After supper I slipped away from my companions, and all alone I lay on the grass looking up at the stars, thinking of what had happened that afternoon. I tried to reconcile the act of Gray-beard with the teachings of the Missionaries, but I could not do so from any point of view. All the boys had come together in the yard, and some one called out, “Let’s play pull.” So they divided into two groups, grading each according to the size of the boys. Two of the strongest were selected, one from each side; they held a stout stick between them, then on each side the boys grasped each other around the waist. When all were ready, they began to pull, every boy crying, “Hue! Hue!” as he tugged and strained. In the dusk the contending lines looked like two great dark beasts tearing at each other and lashing their tails from side to side. Bob and Joe were at the very end of one side; Bob had tied a bit of rope around his waist, and Joe had hold of that with his only serviceable hand. The pulling lasted for quite a while; finally one side drew the other over the mark; the game ended, and the boys noisily disbanded. “Frank! Frank!” I heard; it was Edwin and the rest of the “gang.” “Here I am,” I called out, and they gathered around me. “Joe’s hand is awful swelled up,” said Bob, as he threw himself down on the grass. “What’s the matter with him?” asked Warren.

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“Gray-beard beat Joe’s hand like everything; he was so mad I thought he’d kill the boy.” Then I recounted the scene, adding, “I can’t think of anything else; it was awful!” “Did he do anything to you?” asked Edwin. “He shook me right hard when he asked me who did it; but when he saw Joe crying he knew who it was; then he let go of me and whipped him.” Brush had been listening to my story without a word; now he arose and said, “Boys, stay here till I come back.” He went into the house and knocked at the superintendent’s door. “I’m glad to see you Brush,” said the superintendent kindly. “Have you finished the book, and do you want another?” “No, sir; I wish to speak to you about something that happened to-day, which I don’t think is quite right, and I thought you ought to know about it.” Then he told in a simple straight-forward manner the story of Joe’s punishment. When Brush had finished, the superintendent sent for Graybeard. For a long time the two men talked earnestly together. At length Brush returned, and said, as he took his seat among us: “Boys, that will not happen again. Gray-beard says he’s sorry he did it, and I believe him.” THE BREAK “BRUSH! BRUSH! BRUSH!” I RAN CALLING ONE MORNING SOON AFTER breakfast, down to the barn, to the spring, and back to the house, but I could not find the boy; then I thrust my fingers into my mouth and blew a loud robin call, and the answer came from under a tree up on the hillside. I ran hurriedly to the place; there lay Brush in the shade on the green grass reading. The occasion of this excited search and call was the announcement by the superintendent that the school would be closed that day, and the children dismissed, so that they might go and see their parents, it being reported by an Indian who had come for his little girl that the people had just returned from the hunt. “I been everywhere trying to find you,” I said to Brush. “My

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folks have come home. Put that old book away and come go with me to see them. There isn’t going to be any school to-day.” “Frank, it’s right good of you to ask me, but I don’t feel very well; I think I better not go,” he replied, in a tone of disappointment. “All my bones ache, and I don’t know what’s the matter with me; but you go ’long, boy, and have a good time; you can tell me all about your visit when you come back.” “I’m sorry you can’t go, Brush; but I’ll come back soon and bring you some buffalo meat,” I said, starting to go; “you better think about it again and come.” “I think I better stay home and be quiet,” he answered, opening his book. I spent all the forenoon with my parents, and in the afternoon I went in search of some of my village playmates. I found a number of them on the hillside shooting with their bows and arrows. They gave me a noisy welcome in mock English, which made me laugh heartily; then I had to wrestle with one or two of them, and when our peculiar greetings were over, the boys resumed their play, in which they let me join, one of them lending me his bow and arrows. Our shooting from mark to mark, from one prominent object to another, brought us to a high hill overlooking the ripe fields of corn on the wide bottom below, along the gray Missouri. Here and there among the patches of maize arose little curls of blue smoke, while men and women moved about in their gayly-colored costumes among the broad green leaves of the corn; some, bending under great loads on their backs, were plodding their way laboriously to the fires whence arose the pretty wreaths of smoke. “They’re making sweet corn,” exclaimed one of the youngsters whose little naked brown back glinted against the afternoon sun, and he pointed to the workers in the field. As we stood watching the busy, picturesque scene below us, one little fellow held his bow close to his ear and began strumming on the string, then all the rest played on their bows in the same manner, until one of them suddenly broke into a victory song, in which the others joined.

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At the close of the song they gave me a graphic description of the attack on the camp when it was pitched on the Republican River. Although the enemy was repulsed, and the hunting ground secured to our people, the battle cost many lives, several of the enemy’s warriors were left on the field, and the Omahas lost some of their bravest men. While yet the boys were telling of the thrilling incidents of the battle, we arose with a sudden impulse and rushed down the hill with loud war-cries, as though attacking the foe, the tall grass snapping against our moccasined feet as we sped along. We were rapidly approaching a house which stood alone, when one of the older boys who was running ahead suddenly stopped and raised his hand as though to command silence. Immediately our shouts ceased, and, seeing the serious look on the lad’s face, “What is it?” we asked in frightened tones as we gathered about him. Without a word he pointed to a woman who was cutting the tall sunflower stalks that had almost hidden her little dwelling with their golden blossoms. Her long black hair flowed over her shoulders unbraided, a sign of mourning. Now and again she would pause in her work to look up at the humble home and utter sighs and sobs that told a tale of sorrow. Mingled with these outpourings of grief came often the words, “My husband! my little child!” with terms of endearment and tenderness for which I can find no equivalent in English. On a blanket spread over the ground near by sat a tot of a child babbling to itself and making the beheaded sunflowers kiss each other, innocently oblivious of its mother’s grief. It was a sad home-coming for the woman; the spirit of her husband had fled to the dark clouds of the west to join the host of warriors who had died on the field of battle, and his bones lay bleaching in the sands of a far-off country. “It is Gre-don-ste-win weeping for her husband who was killed in the battle last summer,” whispered the big boy; “let us go away quietly.” When we had withdrawn to a distance where we were sure our noise would not disturb the mourner, one of the boys called out, “Let’s play Oo-hae ’ba-shon-shon!” (Tortuous path.) Years after I learned that this game was played by the children of the white people, and that they called it, “Follow my leader.”

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We graded ourselves according to size, the biggest boy at the head as leader. Each one took hold of the belt of the boy in front of him, and then we started off at a rapid jog-trot, keeping time to this little song which we sang at the top of our voices. CHILDREN’S SONG FOLLOW MY LEADER

Whatever the leader did, all were bound to do likewise. If he touched a post, we touched it too; if he kicked the side of a tent, all of us kicked it; so on we went, winding around the dwellings, in and out of vacant lodges, through mud puddles and queer, almost inaccessible places, and even entering the village, where we made the place ring with our song. At last, tired out, the boys broke line and scattered to their homes. It was then that I suddenly realized the lateness of the hour, and remembered my promise to Brush. I ran to the house, took a hurried leave of my parents, picked up the package of buffalo meat my mother had prepared for my school-mate, and fairly flew over the hill between the village and the Mission. As I came running down the hill to the school I saw Lester, Warren, and Edwin sitting in a row on the fence. “Hello!” I shouted, “what you sitting on that fence for, like a lot of little crows?” No answer came, nor did the boys move. I began to wonder if they were displeased with me, although I could not think of anything I had done to give them offence. As I drew near, I noticed that the expression on their faces indicated alarm rather than displeasure, and, becoming anxious in my turn, I hurriedly asked, “What’s the matter; what’s happened; where’s Brush?”

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The boys looked at one another, then at me; finally Lester replied, almost with a sob, “Brush is awful sick; he’s been raising blood; they sent for the Doctor.” “Where is he? I must go see him,” I said, springing over the fence, and starting toward the house. “He’s in that little room next the girls’ play-room; but they won’t let anybody see him,” said Warren. I went to the room in which Brush lay, and knocked very gently on the door. There was a rustling movement inside, then the door slowly opened and one of the lady teachers stood before me. “What is it, Frank?” she asked in a low tone. I tried to look over her shoulder to see the bed, but she was too tall. “I want to see Brush; can’t I see him? They say he is sick. I want to see him a moment,” I pleaded. “I’m just come back from the village, and brought some buffalo meat I promised him.” “No, Frank, you cannot see him,” was the reply. “He is very sick. The superintendent is with him trying to relieve his suffering. Run away now,” said the lady, stroking my bare head with her small hand. “Don’t make any noise, and tell the rest of the boys to be very quiet.” I went away reproaching myself for not coming back from the village soon, as I told Brush I would. When I rejoined the boys, they looked anxiously into my face, and Edwin asked, “Did you see him?” “No, they would not let me.” After a pause, I asked, “When did he get sick; who was with him?” “It was under the walnut-tree,” said Lester; “he was reading to us about Joseph, out of his little black Bible he always carries. He began to cough hard and choke; he dropped the book all covered with blood, and took hold of my brother’s arm. I ran to tell the superintendent. Just as they carried Brush into the house, Edwin came back and we told him about it.” In the evening, after the small boys had gone to bed, the doctor came, a tall gray-haired man. At the gate he was met by the superintendent, and the two walked slowly up the steps, talking earnestly. We four had been watching for the doctor on the porch; as he came along we caught now and then a word, but

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we did not understand its meaning. We judged by the shaking of the doctor’s head that he thought Brush’s case was serious. Days passed; the doctor came and went; yet Brush’s door was closed to us, nor had we any hopeful news of him. We missed him sadly; we missed his whittling, his harmless scolding; and our play was only half-hearted. Indians who came to the school on business missed his ready offer to help. There was no one to take his place; no one who could interpret for them as well as he. Each one, as he went away, left a word of cheer for the lad, with expressions of hope for his recovery. As school was dismissed one afternoon, the teacher gave special injunctions to the scholars not to make any noise as they passed out, or while moving about the house, so as not to disturb the sick boy. We four strolled toward the spring. Frost had come, and the leaves were beginning to turn red and yellow. Wild geese flew noisily overhead, fleeing from the coming winter to sunnier climes. While we were counting, as we often did, the gray birds, floating through the air like a great V, Warren suddenly exclaimed, “Say, boys, plums!” We looked at him inquiringly. “Let’s go get plums for Brush!” he continued excitedly. Then we remembered that we had pre-empted a small grove of choice plum bushes at the head of the ravine, as against all the boys of the school, and acquired a right in it which even the Big Seven respected. Edwin ran to the kitchen and borrowed from one of the cooks a small tin pail. We hurried to our orchard, where we saw no signs of trespass; the bushes were laden with beautiful ripe fruit. We filled the little pail with the choicest, then each one picked for himself. It was nearly supper-time when we appeared at Brush’s door. The three boys looked at me; so I tapped very gently, and the teacher who was nursing the sick boy opened the door. “We’ve brought some plums for Brush,” I said, offering the tin pail. “That’s very nice,” said the lady, softly; “I will give them to him.” She was about to close the door, when I whispered, “Can we take just a little look at him?” “Yes,” she answered, throwing the door open.

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We four leaned forward and looked in. A smile lit up Brush’s face as he saw us. “How are you now?” I asked, in a loud whisper. “I’m all right,” he whispered back, although his hollow eyes and cheeks told a tale that stole away all our hopes. We with-drew, and the door was slowly closed. Next morning as I was coming down from the dormitory I paused at Brush’s door to listen. I heard footsteps moving about softly, then the door opened and one of the big girls came out with a white pitcher in her hand. I started to go on downstairs, when she called to me in a whisper, “Frank, go down to the spring and get some fresh water for Brush, will you, that’s a good boy?” I took the pitcher and went quietly downstairs. As soon as I was outside the yard, I ran as hard as I could to the spring, glad at the prospect of a chance to see my friend again. Warren and Lester met me as I was coming up the hill. “Did you see him?” one of them asked. “No, but I’m going to,” I answered. “Ask him if we can do anything for him?” said Lester. Just as I reached the head of the stairs the same big girl appeared. I handed her the pitcher; she took it and was about to enter the room, when I caught her arm. “Just let me take a look at Brush, will you?” I whispered. “No, Frank, I can’t. Superintendent says to let nobody in.” I heard a cough, then a feeble voice say pleadingly, “Maria, let him in, just a minute!” The girl looked cautiously around, then said to me, “Come, but don’t let anybody see you. Don’t stay long, be quick!” I stepped in, and a thin hand was stretched out to receive me. “I can’t talk much, I’m so weak,” said Brush. Overcome with emotion, I could not speak but stood holding his hot hand. The girl at the door moved uneasily. “Tell the boys I’m all right,” said Brush. “They mustn’t worry. Come nearer.” I bent over him and he whispered, “To-night, when everybody is asleep, come down and see me. I want to talk to you when I’m alone.” As night came on we four sat under the walnut-tree watching Brush’s window. A candle was lit, then the curtain was drawn.

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Below in the dining-room, the large girls moved quietly to and fro, busy with their evening work. When this was finished, they gathered at the door, and softly sang that beautiful hymn, “Nearer my God to Thee.” We joined in the chorus, the wind wafting the words to the broad skies. The singing came to a close; the dining-room lights were put out, and we were called to bed. As we knelt by the side of our beds to repeat the Lord’s Prayer, I could not keep back the tears that came, thinking of the emaciated little form that I was to see once more that night. One by one the boys fell asleep, and I alone, among the forty or fifty in that big room, remained awake. The clock down in Graybeard’s room struck eleven; the only sounds that came to my ears were those of the heavy breathing of the boys, the soughing of the wind through the trees, the rushing of the waters in the river, and now and then the calls of the wild geese, migrating in the night. The clock struck the hour of twelve; I sat up listening. There was a stir and the sound of a voice that startled me. It was only Warren moving and talking in his sleep. I went stealthily to the head of the stairs, then listened again. I could only hear the throbbing of my heart, and the rasping pulsations in my ears. After a pause which seemed interminable, I put one foot down the first step, the board sprang under my weight, and creaked. Again I paused to listen; there was no stir, and I went on. Every little sound in the stillness of the night seemed exaggerated, and I was often startled, but I went on and reached the door of Brush’s room. I scratched the panel three times. There was a movement within, and a slight cough. Slowly I turned the knob and opened the door. I entered, closed the door, but left it unlatched. A candle stood burning in the midst of a number of bottles on a little table near the head of the bed. I knelt by the bedside, and Brush put his arm around my neck. We were silent for a while, finally he whispered in the Omaha tongue: “I’m glad you came; I’ve been wanting to talk to you. They tell me I am better; but I know I am dying.” Oppressed with ominous dread, I cried out, interrupting him, “Don’t say that! Oh, don’t say that!”

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But he went on, “You mustn’t be troubled; I’m all right; I’m not afraid; I know God will take care of me. I have wanted to stay with you boys, but I can’t. You’ve all been good to me. My strength is going, I must hurry,—tell the boys I want them to learn; I know you will, but the other boys don’t care. I want them to learn, and to think. You’ll tell them, won’t you?” He slipped his hand under the pillow, brought out his brokenbladed jack-knife, and put it in my hand, then said, “I wish I had something to give to each one of the boys before I go. I have nothing in the world but this knife. I love all of you; but you understand me, so I give it to you. That’s all. Let me rest a little, then you must go.” After a moment’s stillness the door opened very gently, and the floor near it creaked as though there were footsteps. A breath of wind came and moved the flickering flame of the candle round and round. The boy stared fixedly through the vacant doorway. There was something strange and unnatural in his look as, with one arm still around me, he stretched the other toward the door, and, in a loud whisper, said, “My grandfather! He calls me. I’m coming, I’m coming!” There was a sound as of a movement around the room; Brush’s eyes followed it until they again rested upon the open door, which swung to with a soft click; then he closed his eyes. I crept closer to the sick boy; I was quivering with fear. Brush opened his eyes again, he had felt me trembling. “Are you cold?” he asked. Just then I heard footsteps in the girls’ play-room; this time they were real; Brush heard them too. “Superintendent,” he said with an effort. When I crept into my bed the clock below struck one. For a long while I lay awake. I could hear noises downstairs, Graybeard’s door open and close, and the door of Brush’s room. I heard a window raised, then everything became still. We did not know how fondly we were attached to Brush, how truly he had been our leader, until we four, left alone, lingered

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around his grave in the shadowy darkness of night, each one reluctant to leave. The Mission bell rang for evening service, and with slow steps we moved toward the school—no longer “The Middle Five.”

from LAME DEER: SEEKER OF VISIONS Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes

Jhadohnbeen(Fire) Lame Deer (Lakota/Sioux) was born in 1903, after the Sioux settled on reservations throughout North and South Dakota. He pursued a number of interesting occupations, including that of painter and rodeo clown, but his truest and most important vocation was that of a Lakota holy man. Filled with good humor and astute observations, his memorable life story was recorded by Richard Erdoes in 1972. Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions offers an adventure-filled life history and a rare glimpse into the world of Lakota beliefs and spirituality. This selection contrasts the traditional tribal education under the wise and watchful eyes of grandparents with the forced, ineffectual educational methods of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I WAS BORN A FULL-BLOOD INDIAN IN A TWELVE-BY-TWELVE LOG cabin between Pine Ridge and Rosebud. Maka tanhan wicasa wan—I am a man of the earth, as we say. Our people don’t call themselves Sioux or Dakota. That’s white man talk. We call ourselves Ikce Wicasa—the natural humans, the free, wild, common people. I am pleased to be called that. As with most Indian children, much of my upbringing was done by my grandparents—Good Fox and his wife, Pte-Sa-Ota-Win, Plenty White Buffalo. Among our people the relationship to one’s grandparents is as strong as to one’s own father and mother. We lived in that little hut way out on the prairie, in the back country, and for the first few years of my life I had

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no contact with the outside world. Of course we had a few white man’s things—coffee, iron pots, a shotgun, an old buck-board. But I never thought much of where these things came from or who had made them. When I was about five years old my grandma took me to visit some neighbors. As always, my little black pup came along. We were walking on the dirt road when I saw a rider come up. He looked so strange to me that I hid myself behind Grandma and my pup hid behind me. I already knew enough about riding to see that he didn’t know how to handle a horse. His feet were hanging down to the ground. He had some tiny, windmill-like things coming out of his heels, making a tinkling sound. As he came closer I started to size him up. I had never seen so much hair on a man. It covered all of his face and grew way down to his chest, maybe lower, but he didn’t have hair where it counted, on top of his head. The hair was of a light-brown color and it made him look like a mattress come to life. He had eyes like a dead owl, of a washed-out blue-green hue. He was chewing on something that looked like a smoking Baby Ruth candy bar. Later I found out that this was a cigar. This man sure went in for double enjoyment, because he was also chomping on a wad of chewing tobacco, and now and then he took the smoking candy bar from his mouth to spit out a long stream of brown juice. I wondered why he kept eating something which tasted so bad that he couldn’t keep it down. This strange human being also wore a funny headgear—a cross between a skillet and a stovepipe. He had a big chunk of leather piled on top of his poor horse, hanging down also on both sides. In front of his crotch the leather was shaped like a horn. I thought maybe he kept his man-thing inside to protect it. This was the first saddle I had seen. His pitiful horse also had strings of leather on its head and a piece of iron in its mouth. Every time the horse stuck out its tongue I could hear some kind of roller or gear grinding inside it. This funny human being wore leather pants and had two strangelooking hammers tied to his hips. I later found out these were .45 Colts. The man started to make weird sounds. He was talking, but we couldn’t understand him because it was English. He pointed at my grandmother’s pretty beaded moccasins and he took some

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square green frog hides from his pocket and wanted to trade. I guess those were dollar bills. But Grandma refused to swap, because she had four big gold coins in her moccasins. That man must have smelled them. This was the first white man I met. When I got home I had a new surprise waiting for me. My grandpa was butchering something that I had never seen before, an animal with hoofs like a horse and the body of a dog. Maybe somebody had mated a dog with a horse and this funny creature was the result. Looking at its pink, hairless body, I was reminded of scary old tales about humans coupling with animals and begetting terrifying monsters. Grandpa was chopping away, taking the white meat and throwing the insides out. My little puppy was sure enjoying this, his first pig. So was I, but the pig smelled terrible. My grandpa said to save the fat for axle grease. Most of my childhood days weren’t very exciting, and that was all right with me. We had a good, simple life. One day passed like another. Only in one way was I different from other Indian kids. I was never hungry, because my dad had so many horses and cattle. Grandma always got up early in the morning before everybody else, taking down the big tin container with the Government-issue coffee. First I would hear her roasting the beans in a frying pan, then I would hear her grind them. She always made a huge pot holding two gallons of water, put in two big handfuls of coffee and boiled it. She would add some sweetener—molasses or maple syrup; we didn’t like sugar. We used no milk or cream in our pejuta sapa—our black medicine. Before anything else Grandma poured out a big soup spoon of coffee as an offering to the spirits, and then she kept the pot going all day. If she saw people anywhere near the house she called out to them, regardless of who they were, “Come in, have some coffee!” When the black medicine gave out, she added water and a lot more coffee and boiled the whole again. That stuff got stronger and stronger, thicker and thicker. In the end you could almost stick the spoon in there and it would keep standing up-right. “Now the coffee is real good,” Grandma would say. To go with the coffee Grandma got her baking powder each morning and made soda bread and squaw bread. That squaw

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bread filled the stomach. It seemed to grow bigger and bigger inside. Every spring, as the weather got warmer, the men would fix up Grandma’s “squaw-cooler.” This was a brush shelter made of four upright tree trunks with horizontal lodge poles tied to the top. The whole was then covered with branches from pine trees. They rigged up an old wood burner for Grandma to cook on, a rough table and some logs to sit on. In the summer, much of our life was spent in the squaw-cooler, where you could always feel a breeze. These squaw-coolers are still very popular on the reservation. Grandma liked to smoke a little pipe. She loved her kinnickinnick—the red willow-bark tobacco. One time she accidentally dropped some glowing embers into an old visitor’s lap. This guy still wore a breech cloth. Suddenly we smelled something burning. That breech cloth had caught fire and we had to yank it off and beat the flames out. He almost got his child-maker burned up. He was so old it wouldn’t have made a lot of difference, but he still could jump. One of my uncles used to keep a moon-counting stick, our own kind of calendar and a good one. He had a special staff and every night he cut a notch in it until the moon “died”—that is, disappeared. On the other side of his staff he made a notch for every month. He started a new stick every year in the spring. That way we always knew when it was the right day for one of our ceremonies. Every so often my grandparents would take me to a little celebration down the creek. Grandpa always rode his old red horse, which was well known in all the tribes. We always brought plenty of food for everybody, squaw bread, beef, the kind of dried meat we called papa, and wasna, or pemmican, which was meat pounded together with berries and kidney fat. We also brought a kettle of coffee, wild mint tea, soup or stuff like that. Grandfather was always the leader of the owanka osnato—the rehearsal ground. He prepared the place carefully. Only the real warriors were allowed to dance there—men like Red Fish or Thin Elk, who had fought in the Custer battle. With the years the dancers grew older and older and fewer and fewer. Grandfather danced too. Everybody could see the scars

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all over his arm where he had been wounded by the white soldiers. Some women had scars, too. Grandpa’s brother, White Crane Walking, had three wives. They were not jealous of one another. They were like sisters. They loved one another and they loved their husband. This old man was really taking it easy; the women did all the work. He just lay around the whole day long, doing nothing. Once in a while some men called him lazy, but he just laughed and told them, “Why don’t you get a second wife?” He knew their wives were jealous and didn’t want them to get a second one. When this old man finally passed away, the two wives who survived him buried him in the side of a hill. They took their skinning knives and made many deep gashes in their arms and legs to show their grief. They might have cut off their little fingers too, but somebody told them that this was no longer allowed, that the Government would punish them for this. So they cut off their hair instead. They keened and cried for four days and nights; they loved their husband that much. I was the takoja—the pampered grandson—and like all Indian children I was spoiled. I was never scolded, never heard a harsh word. “Ajustan—leave it alone”—that was the worst. I was never beaten; we don’t treat children that way. Indian kids are so used to being handled gently, to get away with things, that they often don’t pay much attention to what the grownups tell them. I’m a grandfather now myself and sometimes I feel like yelling at one of those brash kids, “Hey, you little son of a bitch, listen to me!” That would make him listen all right, but I can’t do it. When I didn’t want to go to sleep my grandma would try to scare me with the ciciye—a kind of bogeyman. “Takoja, istima ye—Go to sleep, sonny,” she would say, “or the ciciye will come after you.” Nobody knew what the ciciye was like, but he must have been something terrible. When the ciciye wouldn’t work anymore, I was threatened with the siyoko—another kind of monster. Nobody knew what the siyoko was like, either, but he was ten times more terrible than the ciciye. Grandma did not have much luck. Neither the ciciye nor the siyoko scared me for

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long. But when I was real bad, Grandma would say, “Wasicun anigni kte”—the white man will come and take you to his home,” and that scared me all right. Wasicun were for real. It was said that I didn’t take after my grandpa Good Fox, whom I loved, but after my other grandfather, Crazy Heart, whom I never knew. They said I picked up where he left off, because I was so daring and full of the devil. I was told that Crazy Heart had been like that. He did not care what happened to other people, or to himself, once he was on his way. He was hot-tempered, always feuding and on the warpath. At the same time he saved lots of people, gave wise counsel, urged the people to do right. He was a good speech-maker. Everybody who listened to him said that he was a very encouraging man. He always advised patience, except when it came to himself. Then his temper got in the way. I was like that. Things I was told not to do—I did them. I liked to play rough. We played shinny ball, a kind of hockey game. We made the ball and sticks ourselves. We played the hoop game, shot with a bow and arrow. We had foot races, horse races and water races. We liked to play mato kiciyapi, the bear game, throwing sharp, stiff grass stems at each other. These could really hurt you and draw blood if they hit the bare skin. And we were always at the isto kicicastakapi, the pit-slinging game. You chewed the fruit from the rosebush or wild cherries, spit a fistful of pits into your hand and flung them into the other fellow’s face. And of course I liked the Grab-Them-by-the-Hair-and-Kick-Them game, which we played with two teams. I liked to ride horseback behind my older sister, holding onto her. As I got a little bigger she would hold onto me. By the time I was nine years old I had my own horse to ride. It was a beautiful gray pony my father had given me together with a fine saddle and a very colorful Mexican saddle blanket. That gray was my favorite companion and I was proud to ride him. But he was not mine for long. I lost him through my own fault. Nonge Pahloka—the Piercing of Her Ears—is a big event in a little girl’s life. By this ceremony her parents, and especially her grandmother, want to show how much they love and honor her. They ask a man who is respected for his bravery or wisdom to pierce the ears of their daughter. The grandmother puts on a

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big feed. The little girl is placed on a blanket surrounded by the many gifts her family will give away in her name. The man who does the piercing is much admired and gets the most valuable gift. Afterward they get down to the really important part—the eating. Well, one day I watched somebody pierce a girl’s ears. I saw the fuss they made over it, the presents he got and all that. I thought I should do this to my little sister. She was about four years old at the time and I was nine. I don’t know anymore what made me want to do this. Maybe I wanted to feel big and important like the man whom I had watched perform the ceremony. Maybe I wanted to get a big present. Maybe I wanted to make my sister cry. I don’t remember what was in my little boy’s mind then. I found some wire and made a pair of “ear rings” out of it. Then I asked my sister, “Would you like me to put these on you?” She smiled. “Ohan—yes.” I didn’t have the sharp bone one uses for the ear-piercing, and I didn’t know the prayer that goes with it. I just had an old awl but thought would do fine. Oh, how my sister yelled. I had to hold her down, but I got that awl through her earlobes and managed to put the “ear rings” in. I was proud of the neat job I had done. When my mother came home and saw those wire loops in my sister’s ears she gasped. But she recovered soon enough to go and tell my father. That was one of the few occasions he talked to me. He said, “I should punish you and whip you, but I won’t. That’s not my way. You’ll get your punishment later.” Well, some time passed and I forgot all about it. One morning my father announced that we were going to a powwow. He had hitched up the wagon and it was heaped high with boxes and bundles. At that powwow my father let it be known that he was doing a big otuhan—a give-away. He put my sister on a rug, a pretty Navajo blanket, and laid out things to give away—quilts, food, blankets, a fine shotgun, his own new pair of cowboy boots, a sheepskin coat, enough to fit out a whole family. Dad was telling the people, “I want to honor my daughter for her ear-piercing. This should have been done openly, but my son did it at home. I guess he’s too small. He didn’t know any better.” This was a long speech for Dad. He motioned me to come closer. I was sitting on my pretty gray horse. I thought

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we were both cutting a very fine figure. Well, before I knew it, Dad had given my horse away, together with its beautiful saddle and blanket. I had to ride home in the wagon and I cried all the way. The old man said, “You have your punishment now, but you will feel better later on. All her life your sister will tell about how you pierced her ears. She’ll brag about you. I bet you are the only small boy who ever did this big ceremony.” That was no consolation to me. My beautiful gray was gone. I was heart-broken for three days. On the fourth morning I looked out the door and there stood a little white stallion with a new saddle and a silver-plated bit. “It’s yours,” my father told me. “Get on it.” I was happy again. After I was six years old it was very hard to make me behave. The only way one could get me to sit still was to tell me a story. I loved to listen to my grandparents’ old tales, and they were good at relating the ancient legends of my people. They told me of the great gods Wi and Hanwi, the sun and the moon, who were married to each other. They told me about the old man god Waziya, whom the priests have made into Santa Claus. Waziya had a wife who was a big witch. These two had a daughter called Ite—the face—the most beautiful woman in the universe. Ite was married to Tate, the wind. The trouble with this pairing was that Ite got it into her mind that the sun, Wi, was more handsome than her own husband, the wind. Wi, on his part, thought that Ite was much more beautiful than his own wife, the moon. Wi was having a love affair with Ite, and whenever the moon saw them misbehaving she hid her face in shame. “That’s why on some nights we don’t see the moon,” Grandma told me. The Great Spirit did not like these goings-on, and he punished Ite. She still remained the most beautiful creature in the world, but only if one looked at her from one side. The other half of her face had become so hideous and ugly that there were no words to describe it. From that time on she was known as Anunk-Ite, or DoubleFace. When it comes to love the women always have the worst of it. Many of these legends were about animals. Grandma told me about the bat who hid himself on top of the eagle’s back, screaming, “I can fly higher than any other bird.” That was true

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enough; even the eagle couldn’t fly higher than somebody who was sitting on top of him. As a punishment the other birds grounded the bat and put him in a mouse hole. There he fell in love with a lady mouse. That’s why bats now are half mouse and half bird. Grandpa Good Fox told me about the young hunters who killed a buffalo with a big rattle for a tail. After eating of its meat these young men were changed into giant rattle-snakes with human heads and human voices. They lived in a cave beneath the earth and ruled the underworld. The stories I liked best had to do with Iktome, the evil spiderman, a smart-ass who played tricks on everybody. One day this spider was walking by a lake where he saw many ducks swimming around. This sight gave him a sudden appetite for roast duck. He stuffed his rawhide bag full of grass and then he showed himself. When the ducks saw him they started to holler, “Where are you going, Iktome?” “I am going to a big powwow.” “What have you got in your bag, Iktome?” “It’s full of songs which I am taking to the powwow, good songs to dance to.” “How about singing some songs for us?” begged the ducks. The tricky spider made a big show of not wanting to do it. He told the ducks he had no time for them, but in the end he pretended to give in, because they were such nice birds. “I’ll sing for you,” he told the ducks, “but you must help me.” “We’ll do what